LIFE OF DANTON 
 
' Few such remarkable men have been left so obscure to us as 
 this Titan of the Revolution.' CARLYLE 
 
 Who, doomed to go in company with Pain 
 And Fear and Bloodshed, miserable train, 
 Turns his necessity to glorious gain : 
 
 He, -who though thus endued as with a sense 
 
 And faculty for storm and turbulence, 
 
 Is yet a soul whose master-bias leans 
 
 To home-felt pleasures and to gentle scenes. 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 
LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 BY 
 
 A. H. BEESLY 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' THE GRACCHI MARIUS AND SULLA ' 
 
 L1FK OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN' 'BALLADS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 ' DANTON AND OTHER VERSE ' 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 
 
 1899 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
HISTOR/i 
 
 1-7-03 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 IN criticisms of the first edition it has been surprising to find 
 Danton so often acquitted of organising the massacres. Some 
 have gone so far as to style defence of him on that count mere 
 slaying of the slain. This is sufficiently refuted by the fact 
 that in other criticisms he is still, as of old, held to be guilty. 
 And it would have been simply impossible in a life of him to pass 
 over without thorough examination charges till quite recently, 
 at all events, almost universally credited. No farther back 
 than 1893 M. Aulard in France too wrote : ' Aujourtfhuic'est 
 presque un lieu commun d'attribuer a Danton et a la Commune 
 la premeditation et raccomplissement de ces massacres? It is 
 difficult to imagine that in England a favourable verdict, though 
 notified by fair-minded historians, like Mr. Morse Stephens and 
 Mrs. Gardiner, can have been more generally accepted than in 
 France, the more so as it was not within the scope of either of 
 those writers to go into the evidence in detail. 
 
 Other critics still insist that Danton might, had he chosen 
 or had the courage to do so, have stopped the massacres. I 
 would ask such writers to define precisely what they think that 
 he should and could have done. The moment they try to do 
 so they will find that generalities about his * power ' and his 
 
 372763 
 
VI LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 ' eloquence ' are no answer. He was not a Member of the 
 Assembly. He had no party there. He had only spoken 
 there twice before the second of September. Vergniaud, 
 whom no one assails, was its eloquent man. Danton, whom it 
 suspected and dreaded, would have been the very last man to 
 whom it would have entrusted force, could force have been 
 procured by urgent decree, the very last man whom it would 
 have followed if he had proposed to lead it into the streets to 
 confront the mob, as its successor confronted the mob (how 
 uselessly!) in 1793. 
 
 Nor would Palais Royal eloquence to the mob have been 
 more efficacious. The mob, as Danton knew, was Marat's 
 mob. Because he could persuade men to enlist against a 
 hated enemy it is argued that he could dissuade men from 
 murdering a hated enemy. It would be as reasonable to argue 
 that Peter the Hermit's voice could have checked the excesses 
 of the Crusaders because irresistible in preaching a crusade. 
 Michelet, it is true, suggests that Danton should have gone 
 into the streets with a flag, and a Gordon would very likely 
 have sallied out with a walking-stick. But a commander is 
 not usually expected to play the part of a private, still less that 
 of a martyr. If he cannot do all that he will he must do what 
 he can. Danton must, to be judged fairly, be judged as leader 
 and as man. I firmly believe that as leader he did all he 
 could, and more than the more responsible Roland or anyone 
 else did, to prevent the massacres ; that, failing in his attempt, 
 he felt that there was one thing which he, and, in view of the 
 flight proposed by the other ministers, only he, could succeed' 
 in doing, viz. save Paris from the Prussians, and that this 
 feeling, and neither fear nor ferocity, actuated him in the awful 
 crisis of September. He was neither saint nor martyr, but a 
 sorely beset political leader unwilling to see even enemies 
 lawlessly murdered, unwilling also that he and his friends 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION vii 
 
 should be murdered by Brunswick after murderous civil war 
 in the streets. Walking on the razor-edge of two precipices he 
 has been condemned as if his path was easy and his foothold 
 sure. 
 
 As man he was no guiltier than anyone else in Paris. 
 ' Why,' says Mr. Carlyle, * was I not there with some sword 
 Balmung or Thor's hammer in my hand ? ' But if he had had 
 no sword Balmung, nor any sword at all what would he have 
 done ? Moralised in his hotel, as that evidently kindly and 
 courageous Englishman, Dr. Moore, did. Yet unless to con- 
 front death in order to prevent murder is merely a local 
 obligation, and one not binding on a Parisian in London 
 or a Londoner in Paris, Dr. Moore was as much bound to risk 
 his life for the prisoners as Danton. 
 
 In this edition I have corrected errors (mostly clerical and 
 often corrected by the context) which were due partly to my 
 manuscript having been copied by another person for the press, 
 partly to a pen tViop^o-acrai/ iSia -nys <pei/os, when eyes and 
 brain were overworked. With one immaterial exception they 
 escaped the notice, or were left unnoticed by the charity, of 
 reviewers. 
 
 At the end of Chapter VIII. I have dealt at length with 
 M. Aulard's view of the affair of the Champ de Mars and of 
 Danton's attitude then, which, ably though that lucid writer 
 argues, appears to me in some respects erroneous. 
 
 At the end of Chapter XII. I have given further specimens 
 of Taine's method of aspersing Danton which I commend to 
 critics who continue to put faith in that historian, and have 
 examined a positive allegation made by Von Sybel and not 
 hitherto refuted ; appending the results of an inquiry made 
 for me in the archives of Angers by an expert, for whose ser- 
 vices I am indebted to the courtesy of M. Charavay. 
 
 I have altered the English of a few sentences for greater 
 
Vlll 
 
 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 clearness &c. in some cases to correct inaccuracies and also 
 the spelling of some French names. 
 
 The parallel chronological columns, and the year's date, 
 from 1789, at the top of the pages will, it is hoped, be useful. 
 
 Numerous references are given ; contemporary journals and 
 documents being as a rule cited only when such authorities 
 as Aulard, Bougeart, and Robinet, who quote them in profusion, 
 are cited also. Where identical information is to be found 
 in a variety of books I have as a rule chosen the handiest, or 
 the one which will help anyone, who wishes, to explore farther. 
 If there are errors I hope the non-hypercritical reader will bear 
 in mind the labour involved, for which there will be certainly 
 no other return to me than his convenience and appreciation. 
 
 , 
 M.-T. 
 
 S. 
 
 Michelet . 
 
 L. Blanc 
 Bougeart 
 
 Prods . 
 Vie Privee t 
 
 Homme cPEtat . 
 Bat. du 10 A out . 
 
 IN THE NOTES 
 
 stands for La Revolution Francaise, Revue Histo- 
 
 rique, <5rY., edited by M. Aulard 
 ,, Moniteur 
 ,, Mortimer-Ternaux's Histoire de la Ter- 
 
 reur, in 8 volumes 
 
 , , Sorel's L 1 Europe et la Revohition Franfaise 
 ,, Michelet's Histoire de la Revolution Fran- 
 
 Louis Blanc's Histoire de la Revolution 
 
 Francaise 
 Danton, Documents Authentiques y &<:., 
 
 by Bougeart 
 
 Robinet's Le Prods des- Dantonistes 
 Robinet's Danton, Memoire stir sa Vie 
 
 Privee, edit. 1884 except in ch. i. 
 Robinet's Danfon, Homme d Etat 
 Pollioet Marcel's Le Bataillondu 10 Aofit 
 
 In the case of Claretie's ' Desmoulins ' I have occasionally quoted from 
 Mrs. Hoey's translation, but the references, unless specified, are to the 
 original. So also I have used both the French and English versions of 
 Mme. Roland's Appel a Flmpartiale Posterite. 
 
 August 5, 1899. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 DANTON was long regarded as the Catiline of the French 
 Revolution, with the same gift of speech * satis eloquentiae '- 
 the same mental characteristics ' animus audax, impurus, dis 
 hominibusque infestus ; alieni appetens, sui profusus ; ardens 
 in cupiditatibus ' and the same physical ' magna vi corporis ; 
 colos exsanguis ; fcedi oculi.' And even the most mendacious 
 of eighteenth-century memoirs hardly match the rancour with 
 which writers like M. Taine have ransacked the rag-bags of 
 history for materials to malign him. In repelling such charges 
 it is hardly possible not to write as an advocate or to avoid 
 repetitions of the same kind of disproof. For the accusations 
 themselves have a certain horrid family likeness, and in dis- 
 membering an octopus there is little scope for variety of stroke. 
 But such advocacy will neither be attributed to a childish itch 
 for paradox nor be pooh-poohed as whitewashing by those 
 who call to mind how long ago he was weighed in quite other 
 scales than those of the Peltiers and Prudhommes and was 
 not found wanting. This is what the philosopher Condorcet l 
 thought of him : 
 
 I have been reproached for voting for Danton being 
 Minister of Justice : Here are my reasons : A man was 
 
 1 Who in 1791 had disowned all connexion with Danton. 
 
X LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 necessary in the Ministry who possessed the confidence of the 
 people which had just overturned the throne, and who could 
 keep under control the extremely contemptible agents of a 
 revolution in itself glorious, useful, and necessary. It was 
 necessary, too, that this man should have eloquence, intelligence, 
 and character which would not be unworthy of the members 
 of the Assembly with whom he would come in contact. 
 Danton was the only man possessing these qualifications. I 
 chose him, and do not repent it. He may have deferred too 
 much theoretically to the opinions of the people, and yielded 
 too much in practice to its impulses and ideas. But the 
 principle of doing nothing except with and by the people, 
 while its leader, is the only one which in times of popular 
 revolution can save the laws ; and all who cut themselves 
 adrift from the people will in the end ruin themselves and 
 perhaps the people too. Besides, Danton has the precious 
 quality never to be found in ordinary men. He neither hates 
 nor fears enlightenment, talent, or virtue. 
 
 Jn France most people seem now to agree with Condorcet, 
 if we may judge by the streets called after Danton's name, the 
 statue erected to him at Arcis, and the school books dealt out 
 to French boys. In England, where no life of him has yet 
 been written, the old legend still lingers, though modified to 
 some extent by Carlyle and later writers, and evil indeed it is. 
 ' Danton devised and organised the hellish massacres of 
 September' says one of his most recent critics, who also 
 repeats other charges against him long ago disproved. { It 
 was,' says a writer in the Spectator of November 27, 1897, 
 ' Danton's suspicion of an aristocratic plot which caused the 
 September massacres ' a less direct but hardly less damaging 
 verdict. Even a friendlier critic, Mr. Morse Stephens, avers 
 that ' the greatest blot of his administration was his indifference 
 during the massacres in the prisons, for his power could have 
 stopped them at once. But he regarded these massacres as 
 en advantage to France.' 
 
 In the face of such and so many other accusations no 
 wonder that it seems hard not to believe some of them to be 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION XI 
 
 true. But the further proof is sought the more elusive it 
 becomes. Levasseur said that Danton painted himself in his 
 speeches, and no surer antidote to instilled prejudice can be 
 imagined than those speeches when read along with their 
 context in the Moniteur. This book is based mainly on his 
 speeches. In quoting his actual words the first person is 
 used ; for the gist of what he said, the third. It should be 
 borne in mind that he was badly reported, partly because he 
 was a rapid speaker, partly because it often did not suit the 
 wire-pullers of the journals that he should be reported well. 
 
 Of the principal writers on the Revolution in whose pages 
 he figures Taine is incoherent, self-contradictory, and prone 
 to present as evidence unsifted gossip. Michelet also, in his 
 noble history, has relied a good deal on oral information, 
 which it is impossible for his readers to test. Louis Blanc is 
 an insidious partisan of Robespierre. Mignet is too meagre. 
 Thiers too often draws a bow at a venture to be trusted, 
 masterly though his method is. Carlyle, with the intuition of 
 genius, had not the facts before him now available. To form 
 an adequate estimate of the man it is necessary to turn to 
 specialists like M. Bougeart and M. Robinet, the latter of whom 
 in his ' Danton : Memoire sur sa Vie Privee,' his * Danton, 
 Emigre,' his ' Proces des Dantonistes,' and in certain passages 
 of his ' Le Mouvement Religieux a Paris pendant la Revolu- 
 tion,' has devoted his life to vindication of Danton's good 
 name. Next to them I am most indebted to Mortimer- 
 Ternaux, whose history, though one-sided and anti-Dantonist, 
 is a mine of information and delightful reading ; to M. Sorel's 
 ' L'Europe et la Revolution Franchise ; ' to M. Claretie's 
 1 Camille Desmoulins ; ' to M. Dubost's ' Une Page d'Histoire ' 
 and his ' Danton et la Politique Contemporaine ; ' to 
 M. Aulard's ' Etudes et Legons sur la Revolution Franchise ' 
 and his 'Danton;' to G. Lenox's 'Danton;' and to the 
 
Xll LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 recent edition of Arthur Young's ' Travels ' by Miss Betham- 
 Edwards, who has kindly furnished the photographs re- 
 produced in these pages. The English History which I 
 have found most useful is Mr. Morse Stephens' 'French 
 Revolution,' unfortunately unconcluded. His 'Orators of the 
 French Revolution,' with its numerous little biographies, has 
 been very helpful. 
 
 For quotations from Danton's speeches other than those 
 reported in the Moniteur, and for notices in contemporary 
 journals, I have mainly relied on M. Bougeart's ' Danton.' 
 References to other authorities historians, essayists, memoir- 
 writers, &c. do not call for special mention. 
 
 Jan. 14, 1899. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Birthplace Parentage Schooldays Paris Studies Called to the 
 Bar Marriage Avocat aux Conseils du Roi Income Charges 
 of Venality . . . . . . . . . i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Reasons for becoming a Politician Causes of the Revolution Misery 
 of the People Taxation Penal Code Feudal Burdens Con- 
 duct of Aristocracy Royal Extravagance . . . . 13 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 1789 
 
 President of the Cordeliers Championship of Marat The Chatelet 
 The Bastille The March to Versailles First Mention in the 
 Moniteur Charges of Orleanism, of Royalism Testimony of 
 the Cordeliers Struggles with the Commune . . . .20 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 1790 
 
 Friendship with Desmoulins As yet Monarchist Not elected to 
 Municipal Council Spokesman of the People Turns out 
 Ministers Commandant in National Guard Confronts Re- 
 actionaries . . . . * .28 
 
XIV LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 1791 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Struggles with Lafayette Lafayette's Character Administrator to 
 the Department Letter accepting Appointment First recorded 
 Appearance at the Jacobins Thwarts King's Journey to St. 
 Cloud ........... 34 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 1791 continued 
 
 King's Plots Denunciations of Sieyes and Lafayette Charges of 
 Venality Lafayette's Story about Montmorin Bertrand de 
 Molleville's Letter . 42 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 1791 continued 
 
 Republicanism Address of the Cordeliers Attack on the King at 
 
 the Jacobins Address to the Populace 49 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 1 79 1 continued 
 
 State of Parties Champ de Mars Petition Flight Visit to England 
 Made Joint Deputy Procureur of the Commune Speech on 
 Election Always Cordelier and Democrat .... 54 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 1792 
 
 The Allies Sanguinary Threats of the ' Emigres ' Alarms in Paris 
 King's Folly Danton wishes to banish the Queen His Atti- 
 tude towards War English Influences Defends Robespierre 
 Views as to the Rich, the Queen, Lafayette Sorry State of 
 France Lafayette comes to Paris Series of Events leading to 
 August io Danton Organiser-in -Chief . . . .68 
 
CONTENTS XV 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 1 792 continued 
 
 PAGE 
 
 King's Fatuity Preparations for the roth Petion Events of the 
 9th and roth Danton's Movements Despondency of the In- 
 surgents Lucile's Journal The Cour du Commerce The 
 Tuileries Mandat The King's Character After the Combat . 79 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 1 792 continued 
 
 Rivalry of Commune and Assembly Danton's Strength and Weak- 
 ness Folly of Assembly Panic in Paris No Central Authority 
 Danton's Efforts Power of Commune Danton's Speech 
 Power of Panis and Sergent Danton's last Attempt Roland's 
 Responsibility for Massacres Birmingham Riots Danton's Cir- 
 cular of August 18 . . . . . . . . . 101 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 1 792 continued 
 
 The September Massacres False Accusers of Danton Madame 
 Roland Lafayette Cases of Montmorin and Duport Roland 
 Grandpre Mandar Prudhomme Peltier Alquier General 
 Character of Accusations Stories of Taine and Von Sybel . 124 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 1 792 continued 
 
 The Convention Speech resigning office Girondin Agitation for 
 Guard Apparition of Marat Danton's Appeal for Unity The 
 Rolands Danton's Accounts Elected Secretary Danton's 
 Opinion of Marat Appeals again for Unity Against Lawyer- 
 Judges and reducing Pay of Priests For relieving Victims of 
 . Maison de Secours Liberty of the Press .... .143 
 
XVI LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 1792 continued 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Danton's Foreign Policy Intrigues of Allies Policy of Dumouriez 
 Talleyrand Proposed English Alliance Belgium Holland - 
 Belgian Parties Dumouriez in Paris Danton on National 
 Frontiers Mission to Belgium . . . . . . .154 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 1793 
 
 King's Execution Spain's Intervention < Tyrant ' Girondin 
 
 Charges against Danton His Speech in Defence . . . 166 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 1 793 continued 
 
 Second Mission to Belgium Death of Wife Outlook Abroad 
 Speeches on March 8, 10, and n Respect for Property 
 Debtors Riots in Paris Danton defends Dumouriez and 
 deprecates Faction Revolutionary Tribunal Proposal to 
 strengthen the Executive Danton abjures Office . . ' 17,1 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 1 793 continued 
 
 Treason of Dumouriez Danton defends his conduct and deplores 
 
 Faction . 182 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 1 793 continued 
 
 Danton rebuts Girondin Charges Speech of Lasource Scene in the 
 Convention Danton's Rejoinder Levasseur's Description of the " 
 Scene . . 187 
 
CONTENTS xvii 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 1 793 continued 
 
 PAP.E 
 
 * Sans-culotte ' Army Committee of Safety Scenes in the Conven- 
 tion Danton's Speech Guadet attacks Danton and Marat 
 Danton on Orleans Retractation of Doctrine of Propaganda 
 The Rich to Pay for the War Violence of Faction . . .196 
 
 CHAPTER XX ^ 
 
 1793 continued 
 
 Girondin Threats Committee of Twelve Isnard Danton's 
 Speech Arrest of Ilebert Isnard's Folly Danton's Reply and 
 Threat of Resistance Plots and Counterplots Garat Danton's 
 Speech Suppression and Re-establishment of Committee of 
 Twelve Insurrection Overthrow of the Girondins . . . 203 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 1 793 continued 
 
 May 31 June I and 2 Commune and Convention Danton's 
 Position Offers to retire Convention surrounded by Mob 
 Arrest of Members . . . , . . , -213 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 1 793 continued 
 
 Danton's Second Marriage His Energy La Vendee Dire Straits 
 of the Republic ' Levee en Masse ' ' Hatons-nous de Terminer 
 la Revolution ' Attempts at Alliances Foreign Policy Why it 
 failed 220 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 1 793 continued 
 
 Aliens Illiterate Voters Speech in Convention Views on Whole- 
 sale Punishment, Offensive War, Right of Speech Attacked at the 
 Jacobins Not re-elected on Committee of Safety Desmoulins 
 
 a 
 
XVlil LIFE OF DANTOX 
 
 PACK 
 
 attacks the Committee Danton's Loyalty to it Its Difficulties 
 Custine Danton proposes a Provisional Government Defends 
 Garat Opposes Indiscriminate Arrest On Conscription, Requi- 
 sition, Deserters ......... .227 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 1 793 continued 
 
 Disinterestedness of Danton damaging to him Effects of Marat's 
 Murder and Capture of Toulon Scarcity in Paris Danton's 
 Isolation Carat's Interview with him The Maximum ' Sans- 
 culotte ' Army Danton's Speech He supports Committee of 
 Safety His Speech on the War in La Vendee Hebert Illness- 
 Retirement to Arcis 238 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 v 
 
 1 793 continued 
 
 Danton's Ideal of Government Why not realised Return from 
 Arcis Reply to Hebertists Anti-religious Masquerades con- 
 demned ' Clemency ' Responsibility of Ministers ' Clemency ' 
 again Ultra-revolutionary Excess condemned Scenes at the 
 Jacobins Danton's Speech Robespierre's Perfidious Defence . 248 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 1793-4 
 
 Declining Influence Vieux Cordelier Desmoulins and Philippeaux 
 attacked at the Jacobins Danton's Appeal Desmoulins and 
 Robespierre Danton for Responsible Executive Robespierre 
 and Fabre d'Eglantine Danton's Independence and Common- 
 sense Legendre and Hebert , 259 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 1794, February and March 
 
 Paris Parties - Influences Adverse to Danton His Frit 
 treaties His Speech for Vincent and Ronsin ; for Aboliti 
 Slavery St. Just's Return to Paris Ominous Speech Danton's 
 Rider to it St. Just and Hebert Arrest of Hebert, of Herault 
 Danton's Attitude He defends the Commune . . . .271 
 
 ; ' IS 
 bolition of 
 
CONTENTS xix 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 1794, March 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Heron's Arrest Interview between Danton and Robespierre 
 Hamel's Defence of Robespierre Billaud and Danton Robes- 
 pierre's Baseness Danton's Arrest Robespierre's Indictment 
 of him Sayings of Danton . . . . . . .281 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 1794, April; the Trial 
 
 Trial Packed Jury No Witnesses Danton's Defence Herman's 
 Hypocrisy Robespierre's Speech Legendre's Discomfiture 
 St. Just's Crime Last Sayings and Execution of Danton . . 289 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 Danton not Vain or Cynical His Oratory, Tolerance, Common- 
 sense Views on Education, Religion His great Mistake His 
 Aims and Shortcomings Statue at Arcis ..... 305 
 
 APPENDICES . . -315 
 
 ADDENDUM : Desmoulins' Abode in 1792 323 
 
 SYNOPSIS 325 
 
 INDEX. . . . . 328 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 DANTON Frontispiece 
 
 From a Portrait in the possession of the Family 
 
 DANTON'S MOTHER To face p. 9 
 
 HOUSE OF THE DANTON FAMILY AT ARCIS-SUR-AUBE ,, 246 
 
 ' A hovel in Champagne ' 
 
 TAINE, Eng. tr. i. 90. 
 
D ANTON'S CAREER, 1789-1794 
 
 1789 April 
 July . 
 September 
 October . 
 November 
 
 December 
 
 1790 January . 
 
 March 
 April 
 
 May or June 
 June and July 
 
 August . 
 October . 
 November 
 
 1791 January . 
 April 
 July . 
 August . 
 September 9 
 
 December 
 
 1792 January . 
 August 10 
 September 6 . 
 
 October 10 
 
 December i 
 *793 January 14 
 
 February 10-11 
 March 5 . 
 
 April 7 . 
 June 4 or 17 
 
 August 26 
 October 12 
 November 22 
 1/94 April 5 . 
 
 President of Cordeliers District. (?) , 
 
 At the Bastille. Palais Royal orator. 
 
 President of Cordeliers. 
 
 President of Cordeliers. Urges them to go to Versailles. 
 
 President of Cordeliers. Heads their struggle with 
 
 Commune for Mandat Imperatif. 
 President of Cordeliers. 
 
 Elected, by District, Commissioner to scrutinise arrests. 
 Resists Marat's arrest. 
 Member of Commune. 
 
 President of Cordeliers. Prosecuted by Chatelet. 
 President of Cordeliers. Advocates suppression of 
 
 Chatelet. 
 
 Elected, by District, 'Assistant Notable.' 
 President of Cordeliers. Leads the district in its struggle 
 
 against Bailly ; against the subordination of Commune 
 
 to Department ; against the transformation of sixty 
 
 Districts into forty-eight Sections 
 Elected, by Section, * Notable.' 
 
 Elected, by Section, Member of the Electoral Assembly. 
 Elected Commandant of the Cordeliers Battalion of 
 
 National Guard. 
 
 Elected Administrator to Department. 
 Resists King's departure to St. Cloud. 
 The Champ de Mars affair, 
 (about middle of. ) In England. 
 Returns to Paris on being again elected Member of 
 
 Electoral Assembly. Attempt to arrest him. Not 
 
 elected to Legislative Assembly. 
 Not elected Procureur, but is elected Assistant Pro- 
 
 cureur to Commune. 
 Vice- President of Jacobins. 
 Minister of Justice. 
 Member of Convention. 21, Resigns Ministry. Acting 
 
 Minister till October 9. 
 
 President of Jacobins. n, Member of Constitution- 
 Committee. 1 8, Secretary to the Convention. 
 First Mission to Belgium. 
 
 Returns from Belgium. 31. Second Mission to Belgium. 
 Wife dies. 24, He is in Paris. 
 Back in Brussels. 8, In Paris. 17, Mission to Dumouriez. 
 
 22, In Paris. 26, Placed on Committee of General 
 
 Defence. 
 
 Placed on Committee of Public Safety. 
 Second marriage. 10, Not on Second Committee of 
 
 Public Safety. 25, President of Convention. 
 Placed on Committee of Subsistence. 
 Obtains leave of absence. 
 First speech after return. 
 Executed. 
 
SOME CKXKKAL EVENTS, 1789-1794 
 
 1789 June 20 . . Tennis Court oath. 
 
 July 12 . . Necker dismissed. 14, Bastille taken. 16, First Emi- 
 gration begins. 
 
 August 4 . Renunciation of Feudal Privileges. 
 
 October 3 . Officers' Versailles Dinner. 5, March of Parisians to 
 Versailles. 6, Second Emigration begins. 
 
 1790 July 14 . . Federation Festival. Bastille Day. 
 August 31 . Nanci ' Massacre.' 
 
 June 20 . . Flight to Varennes. 
 
 July 17 . . Champ de Mars 'Massacre.' 
 
 August 25-7 . Convention of Pilnitz. 
 
 October I . Legislative Assembly meets. 
 
 February 7 . Treaty of Pilnitz. 
 
 June 20 . . Mob gets into Tuileries. 
 
 July 25 . . Brunswick's Proclamation. 
 
 August 10 . Capture of Tuileries. 
 
 September 2 . Paris Massacres begin. 20, Valmy. 21, Convention meets. 
 
 November6 . Jemmapes. 19, War of Propaganda avowed. 
 
 January 21 . Execution of King. 
 
 February I . War against England. 
 
 March 18 . Neerwinden. 
 
 April 13 . . War of Propaganda renounced. 
 
 May 3i-June 2 Overthrow of Girondins. 
 
 July 13 . . Murder of Marat. 
 
 August 23 . Levee en masse. 
 
 September 8 . Hondschoote. 
 
 October 16 . Wattignies. 16, Execution of Queen. 17, Cholet. 
 31, Execution of Girondins. 
 
 1794 March 24 
 
 Execution of Ilebert. 
 
. COLLS. PH SC 
 
 D A N TO N . 
 
 to 
 
LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BIRTHPLACE PARENTAGE SCHOOLDAYS PARIS STUDIES CALLED 
 TO THE BAR MARRIAGE AVOCAT AUX CONSEILS DU ROI INCOME 
 CHARGES OF VENALITY 
 
 GEORGES-JACQUES DANTON was born at Arcis-sur-Aube on 
 October 26, 1759, the year in which the French lost the battle 
 of Minden and Wolfe captured Quebec. The townsmen of 
 Arcis were noted for laborious industry and a stubborn spirit 
 of independence. Stocking-making and the pursuits of men 
 living by a navigable river were their main occupation. 
 Danton's father, Jacques, was an attorney. His mother's 
 name was Marie-Madeleine, and his sponsors were her father, 
 Georges Gamut, a carpenter, and Marie, daughter of a surgeon 
 named Papillion. 2 His father died in 1762. In 1770 his 
 mother married a cotton manufacturer named Jean Recordain 
 (or Recordin), who proved a good husband to her and a good 
 father to her too vivacious boy. For the future hero of 
 insurrectionary Paris is said to have been somewhat of a rebel 
 as a child, and if the Rev. Patrick Maguire, in c The Surest 
 Way to Heaven,' published in Belfast, 1871, is to be believed, 
 
 1 The chief authorities for this chapter are Robinet's Danton, Mtmoirt 
 sur sa Vie Privee, edit. 1865, with its quotations from Beon, St. Albin, 
 and Despois ; and Bougeart's Danton, 1879. 
 
 8 So printed by Bougeart. Query, Papillon ? 
 
 B 
 
..2: : : /:;/;: : LIFE.- OF DANTON 
 
 he was, even when in petticoats, well advanced on the surest 
 way to hell. 
 
 Alas, the monster from his earliest infancy showed forth 
 the seeds of the fatallest inclinations, i.e. an incurable in- 
 dolence and a passionate love for gambling. He usually played 
 at cards during the school hours, and the observing man who 
 could have seen him, still in baby's clothes, ducking from 
 morning to night in the Oobe (sic), or wrestling with dogs and 
 pigs in the town gutters, might have foreseen clearly the 
 frightful career of crime and debauchery which this unnatural 
 creature was to follow. 1 
 
 On better authority, however, we know that, though fonder 
 of play than work, and in consequence not seldom a victim to 
 the rod of his schoolmistress, he was a popular boy, generous 
 and frank of disposition, and repaying the love of a most tender 
 mother with passionate affection. In his combats with the 
 animals mentioned by Mr. Maguire, he shared the tastes and 
 only narrowly escaped the fate of the little Boileau. His censor, 
 however, might have placed to his credit a love of water when 
 chronicling his indifference to dirt. The distance to the Aube 
 from the gutter was short, and not one of all his playmates 
 sported in it oftener or was a bolder swimmer. Scarcely, in fact, 
 had he recovered from his encounter with pigs when in some 
 swimming exploit he was nearly drowned. A fever supervened, 
 and then an attack of small-pox, which greatly disfigured his 
 face. Its ugliness, however, was mainly due to yet other mis- 
 adventures. Once, when as a baby he was being suckled by a 
 cow, a bull interfered, and with its horn severely gashed his lip. 
 When older, he is said, out of resentment, to have provoked an 
 encounter with a second bull and to have come off conqueror, 
 though this time at the expense of a mutilated nose. Hence 
 a visage which graphic historians, after likening it to that of 
 every savage beast in a menagerie, have apparently felt incapa 
 ble of adequately describing without reference to monsters of 
 classic fable, the most hideous being chosen as most appropriate, 
 
 1 Lenox's Danton, p. 13. 
 
SCHOOL STORIES 3 
 
 even in defiance of incongruities of sex. It would not, perhaps, 
 have been so extravagant had they suggested that but for this 
 boyish escapade his looks might have less displeased the fas- 
 tidious eyes of Mme. Roland, and that as a consequence the 
 Girondin party might have proved less implacable and the 
 course of the Revolution have been materially changed. 
 
 When he was eight years old, Danton was taken from the 
 dame's school, where he had learnt little, and sent to one for 
 older boys, where he learnt to play cards. The stakes were 
 often cakes, and it was remembered that it was his wont to 
 share such winnings with the loser. His next move was to an 
 ecclesiastical boarding-school at Troyes, where, though more 
 tractable, he was bored to death. ' If,' said he, ' I have to 
 listen much longer to that bell, it will toll for my funeral.' 
 Tradition says that at this school a boy could procure a 
 measure of wine in exchange for a ticket which was presented 
 at the buttery. Some boys were too poor to indulge in such 
 luxuries. To these Danton liberally presented tickets. The 
 evening before the holidays, the Superior, observing how many 
 of these bore Danton's signature, amid his farewell speeches 
 thus addressed him, * You, my friend, may pride yourself on 
 being the school's champion toper.' The other boys laughed, 
 but Danton seems to have taken the master's unlucky irony or 
 his schoolfellows' ingratitude to heart, for he told his mother 
 that he would not go back to this school, where it is noteworthy 
 that he was known by the nicknames 'Anti-Superior,' 'Repub- 
 lican.' 
 
 Not over-happy memories of such schooldays may have 
 made Danton glad in later years to make boys with whom he 
 was connected happier than he had been himself. His nephew, 
 for whose education he made himself responsible, never forgot 
 his kindness. * He used often,' he writes, * to send for me, 
 especially when he had friends to dinner, and nothing can 
 obliterate from my memory his goodness to me and his affec- 
 tion for his own mother and mine. As he pressed them to his 
 heart I have seen tears of happiness fall from his eyes.' The 
 
 B 2 
 
4 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 friends alluded to were Camille Desmoulins, who would frolic 
 with the child by the hour, Delacroix, Robespierre, &c. ; and 
 these dinners to which a young schoolboy was invited were no 
 doubt some of the * orgies ' at which his uncle was charged, by 
 detractors, as sapient as the Superior of the seminary, with 
 wasting his own money and that of the State. 
 
 The following year he was sent to another school at Troyes, 
 where he carried off some prizes, and gained some knowledge 
 of the classics. His class was always eager to hear his themes 
 read, because they were sure to contain something original and 
 striking ; and in declamation he distinguished himself still 
 more. But, as at his previous school, it was for insubordina- 
 tion that he was best known. One of the professors wished to 
 avenge himself on a pupil for some slight by caning him. The 
 offender, whose nominal crime was not knowing his lesson, was 
 eighteen years old, and his class, led by Danton, protested, and 
 protested successfully, against his being so humiliated. The 
 same professor announced, as the subject for a theme, Louis 
 XVI.'s coming coronation at Rheims. * Thoroughly to master 
 one's subject,' said Danton } * one must see it with one's own 
 eyes. I should like to see how they make a king.' So, telling 
 only some of his friends among the boys, who lent him money 
 for his journey, he set off for Rheims without asking his 
 master's leave, and, passing by Arcis without visiting his family, 
 was present in the cathedral when the young king, with his 
 hand on the Bible, swore to reign according to law and for the 
 good of the nation, 
 
 On his return, and when his schoolfellows crowded 
 round to hear his story, he had little to tell of the cere- 
 mony and the gorgeous decorations, but graphically described 
 the setting at liberty of a number of birds in the cathedral, 
 with the comment, ' Pretty liberty that, to flutter between four 
 walls without a crumb to eat or a straw for a nest.' The 
 courtiers, too, with their ' Le Roi est mort ! Vive le Roi ! ' 
 struck him as a set of chattering magpies. The truant's 
 return was naturally followed by a scene with the schoolmaster. 
 
CHOICE OF PROFESSION 5 
 
 But the boy won his pardon by the brilliance of his ' theme,' 
 and, after carrying off all the honours on the next prize-day, 
 left school in a blaze of triumph. 
 
 Two careers were now open to him the Church and the 
 Bar. His uncle urged him to the former, but he emphatically 
 avowed his preference for the latter, and after a period in his 
 life of which practically noth?ng seems to be known during 
 which, however, he must have been studying for his profession 
 we find him at Paris in 1780. He was then in his twenty-first 
 year, and might have called on his stepfather to render an 
 account of the property left him by his father. But 
 M. Recordain was in embarrassed circumstances, and Danton 
 placed all he had at his disposal an act of generosity which 
 he characteristically denominated * setting his affairs in order,' 
 as with a heart light as his purse, he prepared to leave Arcis. 
 It is said that he travelled in the carrier's cart and that the 
 proprietor wished to carry him for nothing. At Paris he at 
 first took up his quarters at the Black Horse Inn in the Rue 
 Geoffrey Lasnier. Afterwards he moved to the Rue des 
 Mauvaises Paroles, in the parish of Saint Germain 1'Auxerrois, 
 thence to the rue de la Tisseranderie, and finally to the Rue des 
 Cordeliers, Cour du Commerce. 
 
 He was soon engaged as clerk by a solicitor named Vinot 
 for his board and lodging. Vinot is said to have shied at his 
 handwriting, but, noticing the young applicant's self-possession, 
 to have closed the bargain. Danton worked hard, and 
 occupied his leisure hours in tennis, fencing, and, above all, in 
 swimming, delighting to practise his strength and skill in the 
 Seine. More than once he saved a friend from drowning. 
 From his bathing-place could be seen the towers of the Bastille, 
 and one day he was heard to ejaculate, * Those strong walls 
 overhead blind and stifle me. When shall we see them 
 pulled down ? I would wield a pick with a will if the chance 
 came.' 
 
 Though tall, powerfully built, and muscular, Danton does 
 not seem to have been constitutionally strong, and, while 
 
6 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 serving his time as clerk, had a long illness, which he utilised 
 by reading the Encyclopaedia, and such authors as Voltaire, 
 Rousseau, Beccaria, and Montesquieu. After reading 
 Montesquieu's ' L'Esprit des Lois ' he exclaimed, * What a new 
 horizon opens before me ! I am Only vexed to find that a 
 writer who carries you to such heights and so far was President 
 of a Law Court.' ' Buffon's Natural History ' became so 
 familiar to him that he could say whole pages by heart. 
 Corneille was his favourite poet, and he also read Tasso, 
 Ariosto, and Dante. He even wrote poetry himself. It is an 
 instructive example of the mendacity which has dogged his life 
 that he was long said to be grossly ignorant and illiterate, when, 
 as a matter of fact, he possessed a well-stocked library, and could 
 read in the original the masterpieces of ancient Rome as well 
 as those of Italy and England. He could, in fact, do more than 
 translate. His brother avocats at his installation mischievously 
 challenged him to compose an address on the existing 
 relations between the law and the moral and political state of 
 France. Danton did not flinch, and in scholarly periods 
 astonished his audience by a scathing denunciation of 
 despotism and a prophecy of the impending revolution. 
 
 It was at Rheims that Danton was called to the Bar, but 
 he soon returned to Paris, and in 1785, pleading for a 
 shepherd against his lord, gained his suit for the former and 
 fame for himself. His address to the court was printed, and 
 he was warmly congratulated by, among others, the well-known 
 publicist, Linguet. In this case, as in others, Danton showed 
 that he was by nature, as at school he was by name, ( Anti- 
 Superior,' pleading by choice for the poor against the rich, and 
 not seldom returning his fees. 
 
 But his profession was not one favourable to independence 
 and was distasteful to him. In a conversation with his old 
 declamation-master, who had come from Troyes to Paris, he is 
 reported to have denounced the parasitic and obsequious 
 attitude of the Bar to solicitors and the Bench, and to have 
 concluded with words that might well have fallen from the 
 
MARRIAGE AND POSITION 7 
 
 Danton of 1792 : ' As for me, barbarian that I am, I confess I 
 cannot put up with all these servilities of civilisation. I con- 
 fess that I am by temperament unable to swallow so much 
 humble pie. I am stifled by such an atmosphere. My lungs 
 need a purer air to breathe.' 
 
 If his professional income was before his marriage small, 
 Danton lived thriftily, a cup of coffee and a game of dominoes 
 after a dinner at some eating-house being only occasionally 
 varied by a visit to the The"atre-Frangais. The cafe he fre- 
 quented most was the Cafe* de 1'Ecole, of good repute, and 
 much used by men of the law. The proprietor's name was 
 Charpentier, who was a bourgeois of position, holding the 
 office of Controleur des fermes. Danton fell in love with his 
 daughter Antoinette-Gabrielle, and she with him. Her parents, 
 after due inquiry, agreed to the marriage, and gave their 
 daughter a dowry of 20,000 francs, stipulating only that their 
 son-in-law should look out for a source of income less pre- 
 carious than poor clients' fees. In June 1787 he was accord- 
 ingly married, and some account of his circumstances then 
 and afterwards will not be out of place here. In the preceding 
 March he had become by purchase Avocat aux Conseils du 
 Roi, and as such, till the abolition of the office in 1791, 
 received from 75,000 to 90,000 francs, or at the rate of 75o/. 
 to 9oo/. a year. 
 
 The Avocats aux Conseils du Roi were seventy-three in 
 number, and at the head of their profession. To be enrolled 
 among them it was necessary to produce testimonials to 
 character, to have practised at the Bar, to have passed 
 a searching examination, and to have become acquainted with 
 almost every branch of law. They were subject to strict 
 discipline. Their practice lay chiefly in the Chancellor's 
 Court, where they had priority before all other advocates, and 
 were of the highest importance and dignity. They were 
 constantly in contact with men in authority, acquiring thus a 
 training in statesmanship and legislation. Their close con- 
 nection with royalty, or the representative of royalty, was 
 
LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 signified in the motto, solis fas cernere solem, and it is possible 
 that it was out of complaisance to fashion that Danton at this 
 time signed himself d'Anton, just as we read in Mme. 
 Roland's Memoirs of another young man prefixing the c de ' 
 to his name on becoming teacher to the pages at Versailles. 1 
 
 Danton's assured position is shown by his having been 
 offered the Chancellor's Secretaryship by M. de Barentin, who 
 was Keeper of the Seals 1788-1789. One historian 2 even says 
 that the Court proposed to make him himself Keeper of the 
 Seals, but that he refused. We know that his business was 
 such as to necessitate his keeping two clerks, 3 and Courtois de 
 1'Aube describes him as full of work, and, at the time he wrote, 
 engaged on suits involving upwards of 12,000,000 francs. 
 Even apart from his professional income he was not penniless, 
 having inherited' from his father, in real property only, 
 20,000 francs, while, in order to enable him to borrow a 
 portion of the purchase-money of his office, his relations had 
 become his security for 90,000 francs. Subsequently his 
 income must have been considerably greater. He was elected 
 Administrator to the Department of Paris, January 31, 1791, 
 and in the same year Joint Deputy to the Procureur Syndic of 
 the Commune, a post worth 2407. per annum. In 1792 he was 
 
 1 Part III. Section I. About this 'de ' which has been made a subject 
 of derisive comment, Danton felt, we may hope, what Beranger afterwards 
 sang : 
 
 ' Eh quoi ! j'apprends que 1'on critique 
 Le de qui precede mon nom. 
 Etes-vous de noblesse antique ? 
 Moi, noble ? oh, vraiment, messieurs, non. 
 Non, d'aucune chevalerie 
 Je n'ai le brevet sur velin ; 
 Je ne sais qu'aimer ma patrie. 
 Je suis vilain et tres-vilain . . , 
 
 Je suis vilain 
 
 Vilain, vilain.' 
 
 2 A. F. Desodoards quoted by Lenox, p. 28. 
 
 3 Mine. Roland's Appeal to Impartial Posterity, My Second Arrest 
 (Eng. tr. 1795). 
 

 DANTON'S MOTHER 
 
CHARGES OF VENALITY 9 
 
 for a short time Minister of Justice, and in the Convention was 
 in receipt of 18 francs a day as deputy, besides whatever extra 
 payments he received when on mission. And though in 1791 
 the office which he purchased prior to his marriage was 
 abolished, he purchased, with the sum given as compensation 
 and other funds, land worth between 80,000 and 90,000 francs. 
 This, with some 5,000 francs personalty, was all he left to his 
 children after he * had had in his hands the treasure of two 
 nations.' 
 
 But small though the estate thus purchased was, it cost him 
 dear. Courtois names it as the main source of the swarm of 
 rumours prejudicial to his name. He himself was stung by 
 them out of his usual indifference to what was said about him. 
 When taking office under the Commune of Paris in 1791 he 
 scornfully said that the property he had recently purchased 
 had, in spite of its modest proportions, been * exaggerated by 
 malice into enormous estates bought for him by imaginary 
 agents of England and Prussia.' And in 1793, after his famous 
 outburst at the Jacobin Club, ' Has my face a free man's look ? 
 Am I no more the companion of your dangers, the friend you 
 have embraced, your sworn ally till death ? Have I not been 
 the mark of persecution without end ? ' he went on, ' You will 
 be amazed when I prove to you that the huge fortune fabricated 
 for me by men who are your enemies as much as mine is in 
 reality the modest property I have always possessed. I 
 challenge proof of the smallest criminality. Try what anyone 
 may, it will be in vain. The people shall see no shuffling on 
 my part. You shall judge me in its presence. I will no more 
 tear out a page of my history than you will the pages of yours, 
 which are destined to immortalise the annals of freedom.' 
 
 The proofs Danton challenged were not forthcoming. He 
 had plenty of money for his frugal household, for hospitality to 
 friends, for congenial generosity to his nephew, his good mother 
 (who was his constant guest), his nurse (to whom he left a 
 pension), and for an occasional day in the country, and a merry 
 dinner. But he did not save much ; and well it was for him 
 
10 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 that he did not. For at a time when charges of venality were 
 scattered broadcast by and at everyone, when Royalists, Giron- 
 dins, Jacobins Mirabeau, Brissot, Isnard, Vergniaud, Guadet, 
 Fauchet, Condorcet, Gregoire, Petion, Delacroix, Desmoulins, 
 Fabre d'Eglantine, Marat, Chaumette, Merlin of Thionville, 
 Chabot, were all tarred with the same brush by their respective 
 enemies, who often specified the exact price for which a man 
 sold himself; when, in the Princesse de Lamballe's memoirs 
 we are told to a franc the sum by which the Incorruptible 
 himself was corrupted, a fortune left by Danton would never 
 have been believed to have been amassed by fair means. 1 
 What webs of falsehood his enemies would have woven round 
 him if they had found fit material we may guess from those 
 which spider-like they spun out of their own bowels. Mirabeau 
 mentions his having been given 30,000 francs in March 1791. 
 Lafayette says that his compensation for his office in 1791 was 
 really a bribe of 90,000 francs from the Court. Brissot, with 
 Bertrand de Molleville, raises the sum to 300,000 francs, Brissot 
 saying he had seen his receipt for it, though Lafayette says 
 that Montmorin told Danton it was burnt. And if every 
 charge were taken as true, the total of his illicit gains would 
 amount to two million francs and more. Two years after he 
 was in receipt of a very considerable income, he was, according 
 to Mme. Roland, ' a wretched advocate more burdened with 
 debts than causes, whose wife said she could not have kept 
 house without the help of a guinea a week from her father.' 
 
 Lafayette's charge is precise. Had he himself published 
 his venomous accusations he would possibly have been less 
 positive. 2 But little did he and his congeners dream that the 
 day would come when every detail of Danton's indemnification 
 for his avocatship as well as of its acquisition would be brought 
 to light, to Danton's honour and their shame. The fact was 
 that while Lafayette supposed him to be bribed by Mirabeau, 
 
 1 The Duke of Brunswick was said to have been bribed to evacuate 
 France by the proceeds of the robbery of the Garde-Meuble ! (S. iii. 96.) 
 a Cf. Memoires, iii. 84, and iv. Avertissement (edit. 1837). 
 
EVIDENCE OF HIS INNOCENCE II 
 
 Mirabeau considered him the creature of Lafayette, and they 
 and Brissot repeated every gutter-story till perhaps they even 
 came to believe them, involving themselves thereby in hopeless 
 absurdities and self-contradiction. Proof they had none, 
 unless the assertion of Brissot, which clashes with Lafayette's 
 in two points, is proof. But Brissot was a needy man himself, 
 charged with accepting bribes one of 6,000 francs a month, 
 and for other service 300,000 francs down. He was author of 
 the axiom that property is a theft, 1 was charged with the theft 
 of other people's property, 2 and, by Peltier, with being himself 
 Montmorin's murderer. No one would believe Peltier, but 
 the lines he quotes are suggestive : 
 
 Haine de philosophe est un feu qui devore : 
 Haine de Gazetier est cent fois pis encore. 
 
 Moreover, if Brissot could have shamed Danton, why did 
 he not do so when they were enemies, and during the death- 
 struggle of the Girondins and the Mountain ? Such proof as 
 has come to hand since Lafayette's day has been all against 
 Lafayette, and Louis Blanc, who in one edition most relied 
 on him when assailing Danton's reputation, was forced in 
 another to admit that he had been leaning on a broken reed. 
 
 We who know that not one scrap of evidence against 
 Danton was ever found in the iron cupboard, or the King's 
 desk, or the secret accounts of Montmorin, or those of the 
 Intendant of the civil list, Laporte, inventoried by Danton's 
 enemies, the Girondins, and printed by order of the Conven- 
 tion; that no evidence of his venality was produced at his 
 trial ; that in Paris he lived in a small unpretentious house in a 
 side-street ; that the country houses modest enough, as one 
 may still judge from engravings of that at Sevres which 
 he was said to have kept up, were the property, first one, then 
 the other, of his father-in-law ; that he himself, at his trial, 
 
 1 Claretie's (Euvres de C. Desmoulins, i. 254. 
 
 2 Bourgoing's Hist. Dipt, de F Europe, Part I. p. 433, and Carlyle, 
 Fr. Rev. ii. 94 (edit. 1871). 
 
12 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 summoned as a witness in his behalf the landlord at whose 
 house his * orgies ' were said to have been held, and that the 
 Court would not let the witness be called ; that at a time of 
 incessant surveillance over, and preternatural suspicion of, 
 rich men, orgies which could have swallowed up two million 
 francs, even if otherwise credible, would have been impossible 
 for a popular leader, would, in fact, have brought him post-haste 
 to the guillotine ; that the lists of proprietors of the theatre in 
 which he is said to have speculated do not contain his name ; that 
 no estate purchased for him by an agent was ever inherited by 
 his family or has otherwise been accounted for ; and that the 
 whole of the fortune he left at his death was some three or four 
 thousand pounds, may confidently pronounce Danton Not 
 Guilty of charges as rancorous as they are unproved, and 
 appreciate his own words to Courtois, ' I shouldn't know how 
 to spend 50,000 livres prudently if I had them. The fear of 
 misusing such a sum, even more than of having Hubert and 
 his gang at my heels, would hinder me from dreaming of its 
 
 acquisition.' l 
 
 See Appendix A, ( Danton's Income.' 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 REASONS FOR BECOMING A POLITICIAN CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 
 MISERY OF THE PEOPLE TAXATION PENAL CODE FEUDAL 
 BURDENS CONDUCT OF ARISTOCRACY ROYAL EXTRAVAGANCE 
 
 IF Danton were not the needy adventurer of legend it may 
 still seem surprising that when well-to-do and happily married 
 he should have voluntarily launched out of so quiet a haven 
 into the stormy sea of politics. But it would have been far 
 more surprising if he had not done so. 1 ff& wa^ as his 
 bQjrhood-jf hnw<; i a boy" politician, a born orarn r( an H nf a 
 temperament which, while equal to immense effort at a crisis, 
 was indisposed to humdrum drudgery. Moreover, in that 
 stormy decade during which he came to Paris, to be young 
 and able and not a politician was almost impossible. Stupid, 
 indeed, is the criticism which can account only by dishonest 
 motives for such a career as his at such a time. It needed a 
 far less keen vision to foresee the coming decomposition of 
 society, and far less consciousness of ability to make him aspire 
 to preside over its reorganisation. For though it has been 
 said that no man can name the causes of the Revolution, that 
 they are countless, old as the world, beginning at the remotest 
 eras of history 2 reflections true in a sense of all great 
 historical events from a less nebulous point of view never 
 were causes more certainly known or susceptible of more exact 
 
 1 St. Alhin says that Danton proposed to M. de Barentin a plan of 
 reform in which the King was to play the part of chief reformer. Homme 
 (CEtat, p. 32. 
 
 2 Lewes's Robespierre, ed. 1849, p. 62. 
 
14 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 definition. A people rebels when it is misgoverned or starves. 
 The French people were both starved and misgoverned. The 
 writings of Voltaire and Beaumarchais killed many supersti- 
 tions. The writings of Rousseau created many yearnings. The 
 Encyclopaedia was the entrance gate to an avenue of far-reaching 
 thought. The example of America may have stimulated some 
 theorists. The imbecility of the Court surpassed the hopes of 
 its most sanguine enemies. But each of these factors in the 
 Revolution, and all of them put together, might not improbably 
 have failed to revolutionise France if it had not been for the 
 profound misery and degradation of the French people. 1 
 
 In 1709 a cure entered in his parish register, ' I certify to 
 all those whom it may concern that all the persons who are 
 named in this parish register have died of famine, with the 
 exception of M. Descrots and his daughter ; ' and adds, * The 
 people have been eating dead carrion for a fortnight past ; 
 there is no corn, and women have smothered their children for 
 dread of having to feed them.' 2 In 1739 D'Argenson says, 
 1 The men are dying as thick as flies, and the living are eating 
 grass.' In ten years the population diminished one third. 
 The people were already full of rage. * When,' says D'Argenson, 
 * the people no longer fear anything, they are everything. All 
 these materials are combustible.' At the time of Danton's 
 marriage there was no change for the better. 3 All over France 
 land was going out of cultivation. The high-roads were 
 deserted. You might go on one thirty miles from Paris and 
 not meet a diligence or a carriage. The fields, where 
 cultivated, were cultivated badly. The houses were often 
 
 1 ' II n'est personne qui n'avoue que la Nation a ete preparee a la 
 Revolution par le sentiment de ses maux bien plus que par le progres des 
 lumieres.' Mirabeau (quoted by M. E. Champion in his La France 
 (fapres les Cahiers de 1789). 
 
 2 ' Famine de 1709 dans le val de la Loire,' quoted by M. Claretie 
 (Camille Desmoulins et les Dantonistes), p. 40. Cf. La France cTapres 
 les Cahiers, pp. 221-2. 
 
 3 Cf. Michelet, ii. 2. Des le mois de mai (1789) la famine avait 
 chasse des populations entieres les poussant 1'une sur 1'autre.' 
 
STATE OF FRANCE 15 
 
 without glazed windows. The castle you might see perched 
 overhead on some rock would be kept garrisoned for the 
 reception of prisoners sent by lettres de cachet. In Paris alone 
 there were thirty prisons where you could be incarcerated 
 without trial. 1 In six only of the twenty bastilles of France 
 there were in 1775 three hundred prisoners. There were vast 
 wastes, huge forests, and grand mansions. But the owners 
 were absentees, squandering the rents, wrung from their serfs, 
 in the luxury of towns. The wretched peasants shoeless, stock - 
 ingless, living on bread that was bread only in name, were 
 often hardly human to look upon. Women of 28 seemed like 
 women of 70, being deformed and disfigured by incessant and 
 grinding toil. Wages were incredibly low. Inns were often 
 less clean than an English pigsty. Outside Paris and some of 
 the larger towns a newspaper was a rare article. Yet every- 
 where was an ominous craving for news, and as a result 
 a constant crop of monstrous rumour. The lazy swarm of 
 monks was hated, and the tithes of the clergy, though less 
 cruelly exacted than other dues, were a burden daily harder 
 to be borne. For famine, never unknown, was becoming 
 chronic. 
 
 And as if the people were not unhappy enough by reason 
 of what their masters did not do, they were trebly tormented 
 by what they did. Taxation was of the most crushing kind, 
 and levied capriciously. The intendant was omnipotent, and 
 he and his parasites harried the poor to gratify the rich. Many 
 hundreds of farmers were annually ruined by the corvees 
 three hundred of them being reduced to beggary by the filling 
 up of one vale in Lorraine. Enrolment for the militia was 
 another scourge, which fell only on the third estate, for the 
 nobility and clergy were exempt from it, as they were from 
 the corvee and the faille. 
 
 The penal code was of merciless severity. Nearly 3,500 
 prisoners were sent every year to the galleys. Torture was 
 still employed. Men were still broken on the wheel. Flogging 
 1 Michelet, Introduction, La Bastille. 
 
1 6 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 and branding were the common punishment for smuggling 
 such necessaries as salt, and were inflicted on women as well 
 as men. Peasants were forbidden to weed or hoe where 
 there were young partridges, to use manure which might injure 
 their flavour if they fed on corn so nourished, to mow before 
 a certain time or take away stubble lest they should lack shelter. 
 In one place mowing barley with a scythe was illegal, and 
 punishable by a fine of 100 francs. In another it was illegal 
 to keep a dog or cat. 
 
 The feudal fines and exactions were innumerable and their 
 names untranslatable into English because in England they were 
 unknown. * What,' asks the writer ! whose observations are 
 here recapitulated, 'are these tortures of the peasantry in 
 Bretagne which they call chevauches, quintaines, soule, saut 
 de poisson, baiser de mariees; chansons; transporte d'ceuf 
 sur une charrette ; silence des grenouilles ; corvee a misericorde ; 
 milods ; leide ; couponage ; cartelage ; barage ; fouage ; 
 marechaussee ; banvin ; ban d'aout ; trousses ; gelinage ; 
 civerage ; taillabilite ; vingtaine ; sterlage ; bordelage ; minage ; 
 ban de vendanges ; droit d'accapte ? ' 2 What, indeed ? 
 1 Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told,' they were links 
 in the chain which by road and river, and over every province 
 of France, fettered all industry and turned human beings into 
 savage beasts. For in addition to the ferocity of the penal 
 code, its administration was infamous. 'Woe,' says our 
 writer, ' to the man who could not conciliate favour by the 
 beauty of a handsome wife or by other methods.' 
 
 In shocking contrast to all this wretchedness was the cold- 
 blooded insolence of the nobles and their impunity for all sorts 
 of crime. In 1788, on the very eve of the Revolution, the 
 Due de Bethune's carriage ran over a girl in a Paris street. 3 
 Amid the shrieks of the child's mother he exclaimed, without 
 getting out, ' Let the woman come to my house, she shall be 
 
 1 Arthur Young. 
 
 2 The words are given as in the original. 
 
 3 Thiebault's Memoirs (Butler's tr.), i. 61. 
 
FEUDAL HORRORS i'; 
 
 paid for her loss.' In the preceding reign the Comte de 
 Charolais amused himself with shooting some slaters at work 
 on his property, laughing merrily as his victims rolled from the 
 roof. This, however, was too much, even for Louis XV., and 
 he warned the count that if he committed any fresh offence he 
 would pardon anyone who killed him. 1 
 
 How an attack on the King himself was punished the 
 awful death of Damiens has branded on the memories of all 
 readers of history. Less familiar are the details of another 
 horror perpetrated on a man who had written some satirical 
 lines on the King's mistress. Seized, when asleep, in the 
 harbour of the Hague, in defiance of international law, he was 
 immured beneath the sea-level of Mont St.-Michel for eight 
 years in a stone hole, where he could neither sit, lie, nor stand 
 naturally, the length of which was between four and five feet, 
 the width four feet, the height three feet, where no light 
 penetrated except for one hour in the twenty-four, and where 
 he was incessantly assailed by rats. It has been conjectured 
 that he sustained life by eating them. But at last they ate 
 him, bit by bit, beginning with his toes. Modern writers who 
 draw roseate pictures of Bastille drawing-rooms forget that a 
 system under which such things are possible must be judged 
 not by its least harsh manifestations at any given moment, but 
 by its worst possibilities. 2 
 
 And if brutalities of this sort were, in degree at least, 
 probably exceptional, other of the nobles' misdeeds were 
 flaunted by them in the streets every day. Haggard men 
 muttered how, in the hour of national bankruptcy, arid when 
 deaths from hunger were common, one of the King's brothers, 
 the Comte d'Artois 'a creature who would do anything 
 under the influence of fear, a very dare-devil of ^>wardice ' 3 
 could spend 6,000,000 francs on a house and gardens, 3 and 
 
 1 Baron F. de Rothschild's Personal Characteristics front French 
 History, p. 99. 
 
 2 See Cornhill Magazine, 1896, p. 345. 
 8 Thiebault Memoirs, vol. i. 
 
IS LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 could sponge on the King to the tune of 17,000,000 francs 
 more ; l how another brother, ' Monsieur,' tampered with 
 assassins ; l how the Cardinal de Rohan, type of many others 
 of the higher ecclesiastics, said it was impossible to live on an 
 income of less than a million and a half ; l how year after year 
 the processions in the Longchamps Avenue grew more and 
 more extravagantly luxurious, till, escorted by their aristocratic 
 lovers, Phrynes rode there covered with jewels and little else ; l 
 how Marie Antoinette bought St. -Cloud; 2 how the King 
 bought Rambouillet; and how such entries as 'a Madame, 
 500,000 livres ' figured in the Royal Red Book at a time when 
 the Finance Minister was robbing the chests of hospitals to 
 fd\ the Royal exchequer. ' Louis XIV. had left as a legacy to 
 France 2\ milliards of debt ; 2 750 millions had been added to 
 it during seven years of the regency. But the Queen went on 
 gambling, the nobles went on scandalising even Paris, the tax- 
 gatherers went on squeezing blood from stones, and still the 
 people endured ; and, but for what seemed the revolt of 
 nature herself against man's wickedness and folly, might have 
 endured still longer. The words in which an English poet 
 consecrated ' Carnage ' a Frenchman might have more truly 
 used of ' Famine,' and hailed it as God's daughter. For at the 
 cost of infinite suffering it was yet, indirectly, the salvation of 
 France. Those who speak with horror of the 1,200 victims of 
 September would do well to bear in mind the appalling 
 amount of wrong and wretchedness which, though unrecorded 
 by newspapers and unexaggerated by loud-tongued pamphle- 
 teers, had gone on accumulating during those interminable 
 years which preceded the vengeance of one week. Well may 
 the sturdy English farmer, 3 who has been quoted, doubt the 
 wisdom of those who 'feel no compassion for the many 
 because they suffer in his eyes not individually but by millions ; ' 
 and conclude that ' he who chooses to be served by slaves and 
 by ill-treated slaves must know that he holds his property and 
 
 1 Thiebault's Memoirs, vol. i, a Michelet, Introduction. 
 
 3 Arthur Young. 
 
WHY DANTON BECAME A POLITICIAN 1 9 
 
 life by a tenure far different from those who prefer the services 
 of well-treated freemen ; and he who dines to the noise of 
 groaning sufferers must not in the moment of insurrection 
 complain that his daughters are ravished and then destroyed, 
 and that his sons' throats are cut.' 
 
 What the Englishman had generalised during a tour of a 
 few months, Danton had watched in detail from boyhood, and 
 had treasured up in a heart which naturally rebelled against 
 tyranny. This was why it was inevitable that, being in Paris, 
 he should embark on a political career. l 
 
 
 
 1 II n'est pas douteux non plus que 1'insurrection avait de tres-serieuses 
 excuses, que sous pretexte de droits peut-etre legitimes a leur origine, Its 
 seigneurs et leurs agents avaient accumule des fraudes impudentes, exerce 
 une oppression lourde, et que le delire passager, dont ils furent les 
 victimes, etait provoque par une interminable serie d'iniquites ' (La France 
 d'apres les Cahiers de 1789, p. 154). 'Si Tocqueville et Taine les 
 (cahiers) avaient Studies comme il faut, ils auraient mieux compris la 
 chute de 1'ancien regime ' (ibid. p. 4), 
 
 c a 
 
20 LIFE OF DANTON 1789 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 1789 
 
 VRESIDENT OF THE CORDELIERS CHAMPIONSHIP OF MARAT THE 
 CHATELET THE BASTILLE THE MARCH TO VERSAILLES FIRST 
 MENTION IN THE < MONITEUR 'CHARGES OF ORLEANISM, OF 
 ROYALISM TESTIMONY OF THE CORDELIERS STRUGGLES WITH 
 THE COMMUNE 
 
 DANTON, we have seen, had on two occasions at least attracted 
 the notice of his contemporaries by his eloquence, once in 
 defending a client, and once at his installation as Avocat aux 
 Conseils. Though we do not know it, we may reasonably 
 infer that as he acquired confidence he exercised his natural 
 powers frequently, and that it was owing to constant experience 
 of his persuasive speech that the district of the Cordeliers 
 elected him as its president in the spring of I789. 1 That year 
 might have been christened the Year of Newspapers if other 
 things had not made it even more memorable. The liberty of 
 the press had been decreed in August, and journal after journal 
 sprang into existence, potent at the time and still not forgotten. 
 Among them were the ' Patriote Francois,' the ' Revolutions 
 de Paris,' the 'Courrier de Brabant,' and, most famous of all, 
 the 'Ami du Peuple,' But Danton had no newspaper and 
 wrote in none. He was never a writer. And when so many 
 
 1 Bougeart's Danton, p. 7. Though no proof of Bougeart's statement 
 exists it cannot be set aside. Danton may have been the first informal 
 chairman. Another sort of presidency a mortierm the mock par- 
 liaments of the Palais Royal, the following year, showed where his 
 eloquence of the rougher and readier kind was practised and trained. Cf. 
 Homme tf'Etat, pp. 49 -50. 
 
1789 THE CORDELIERS MARAT 21 
 
 active intelligences were stirring with their pens it is significant 
 that not one of them should have been preferred before him 
 in the place where, even more than in the Mother Society, the 
 mother ideas of the Revolution were engendered. The 
 mechanism of the Revolution was to be seen at work at the 
 Jacobins. But that the motive force was drawn chiefly from 
 the Cordeliers, we gather both from its enemies and its friends. 
 1 It was,' says Fre"ron, ' the terror of the aristocracy and the 
 refuge of all the oppressed of Paris,' and it was in the hope of 
 disuniting it and cutting at the root of the vigour which it 
 displayed under Danton's presidency, that the sixty districts 
 were converted into forty-eight sections. 1 But the attempt 
 failed, and the flame of patriotism was kept burning as brightly 
 as ever in the Section Theatre-Fran gais. 
 
 Mercier's testimony from the opposite point of view is to 
 the same effect. During Danton's life the two men had, it 
 seems, been on tolerably familiar terms. Mercier in a chance 
 conversation had been moved to begin a solemn exhortation 
 with the words, * You are ruining the Republic and France,' 
 only to hear Danton's bantering ejaculation, * The rabid man,' 
 and such irreverence may have helped to embitter his pen. 2 
 Hence his abusive epithets ' client-hunting pettifogger with the 
 fluency of the gutter and the logic of a thief.' But though our 
 confidence in the acumen of his political post-mortem is not 
 enhanced by the operator's maledictions, Mercier's estimate of 
 the influence of the Cordeliers district is instructive. Every 
 revolutionary crime was, according to him, sown there and 
 grown there, and its president was the arch-fiend who scattered 
 and watered the tares. Equally significant is his judgment 
 that the first act in the demagogic drama was Danton's 
 championship of Marat in the winter of 1789-90. The first 
 warrant for Marat's arrest should have been, though it was 
 not, executed on October 6. Though he escaped then, he was 
 
 1 In June and July 1790 Danton strenuously opposed the change. 
 * Sixty democratic clubs ' Aulard calls the districts. Rtv. Fr. xxiv. 228. 
 
 2 Le Nouveau Paris, c. 27. 
 
22 LIFE OF DANTON 1789 
 
 arrested December 12 and was to have been rearrested 
 January 22. Danton, though personally he did not like Marat, 
 viewed his arrest as an attempt to stifle free speech and to 
 bolster up sore-smitten regal tyranny by the municipal tyranny 
 of Mayor Bailly. He spoke out boldly, therefore, in behalf of 
 Marat, threatening to raise St.-Antoine in his defence. Marat 
 affirms that 12,000 men, cavalry and infantry, were called out 
 to catch him, and that the reason for such a grotesque display 
 of force was that the authorities dreaded the resistance of the 
 Cordeliers. They might well do so. That district named five 
 commissioners, of whom its president was to be ex officio 
 one, to protect any citizen from arrest unless with the com- 
 mittee's cognisance and assent. It called on the military force 
 of the district to enforce its decree, in which it invited the 
 other districts of Paris to co-operate. And it sent formal notice 
 of the decree to the Chatelet and the National Assembly. 1 
 
 The Chatelet was not slow in taking up so bold a challenge, 
 and issued a warrant for Danton's arrest. His menacing 
 language seemed doubly outrageous to the men of the robe as 
 coming from the lips of one of their own order. But they had 
 gone too far. The National Assembly's decree of August 23 
 had plainly forbidden interference with a citizen's free speech. 
 Their action excited universal indignation, and the appeal of 
 the Cordeliers to the National Assembly was universally 
 approved. Meantime the case was also brought before the 
 Assembly of the Commune. Though at that time by no 
 means Dantonist, it incidentally testified through its president 
 to the uprightness of Danton's career, giving the lie thereby to 
 Mercier's insinuation that he was to be arrested for debt. But 
 it prudently shrank from interference where legal means would 
 suffice. Danton equally disclaimed any idea of resisting th^ 
 National Assembly, and a manifesto of the Cordeliers was 
 
 1 The Chatelet was the name of the Court of the Provost of Paris, sa 
 called after the fort where it was located. Rabaut de St* Etienne calls ifc 
 * one of the chief hopes of the monarchical party. 
 Eng. tr. 1792, p. 179. 
 
1789 POLITICAL ACTIVITY 23 
 
 issued which in politic terms said the same thing. The 
 Chatelet had to recognise its mistake and for the time abandon 
 the attack. But it did not forget, and we shall find a second 
 onslaught on Danton in the following year. 1 
 
 At the same time as this affair of Marat, and even prior 1 3 
 it, Danton had taken other parts in * the demagogic drama ' of 
 1789. He is said to have shared in the attack on the Bastille 
 in July, and two days after its capture to have gone at the head 
 of the men of his district and arrested its provisional governor. 
 Camille Desmoulins records his share in the events of October 
 5-6. When tidings came to Paris of regiments concentrating 
 at Versailles, of plots for spiriting the King away to Metz, of 
 the fatal banquet at which the ' Austrian Woman ' smiled on 
 the bodyguard and their guests, as, ' flown with insolence and 
 wine,' they trampled on the national cockade, it was Danton's 
 voice that sounded the tocsin among the men of the Cordeliers, 
 and he no doubt worded the manifesto with which they 
 placarded Paris and demanded and headed the march to Ver- 
 sailles. 
 
 His name first appears in the ' Moniteur ' on November 30, 
 1 789. The Cordeliers district, at the instigation of its president, 
 is noticed as insisting on the responsibility of deputies to their 
 constituents and on their dismissal in case of contumacy. 
 Doctrine so democratic at so early a date naturally provoked 
 criticism and opposition. Danton, while not dissociating him- 
 self from the principle at issue, thought it necessary to disavow 
 * instigation/ saying that the whole assembly and not he only 
 as president was responsible. He also disavowed the author- 
 ship of a characteristic decree of the district, in which he must 
 have Cordially concurred; enforcing a small poor-relief coritri- 
 
 1 Jn 1790 ((April ?o) Danton, as president of the Cordeliers district, 
 retaliated on the Chatelet by signing an address having in view its suppres- 
 sion and the creation of a ' grand jure" ' in lieu of it to deal with charges 
 of treason, This adcjress, which was presented to the Assembly, contained 
 the germs of the revolutionary tribunal of 1793, and was a manifestation of 
 the tendencies which produced the High Court of Orleans in 1791. Rtv. 
 fr, x*iv, 227, 
 
24 LIFE OF DANTON 1789 
 
 bution from every member, and inviting the rich to Supplement 
 this contribution according to their means. On December 26 
 he headed a deputation of the Cordeliers to the Commune 
 with reference to some informality in the commissions of the 
 National Guard. The Commune at that time was not a 
 favourable audience, and the reporter records its impa- 
 tience at Danton's vivacity and superfluously vigorous orato- 
 rical gestures. 1 
 
 From all this it is plain that by the end of 1789 Danton 
 had become a power in Paris, 2 and as a corollary stories began 
 to be circulated of his being in the pay of Orleans, in the pay 
 of Mirabeau, in the pay of the Court. Lafayette relates how 
 he frustrated a design of his to make the Duke of Orleans com- 
 mandant of the French Guards, and so put the King in his 
 power. This may have been true, but, if true, what Danton 
 probably aimed at was the restoration to power of the people's 
 friends, the French Guards, rather than the aggrandisement of 
 Orleans. Lafayette, who charges him in one breath with 
 Orleanism, and in the next with being bribed by the Court, 
 prefaces with a * probably ' his supposition that Danton meant 
 Orleans to replace Louis on August 10, 1792. * Probably ' he 
 had no better ground for his assertions and prognostics than 
 such garbage as this, ungrammatical and untranslatable into 
 decent English, which came from one of his own adherents in 
 1790: 
 
 * En 1790, un agent du general, le sieur Estienne, ecrivait : 
 Je devons en conscience avertir les MM. de la nation que les 
 egrefins dont le due d'Orleans se servit pour faire ameuter le 
 faubourg St. Antoine et bruler la maison de Reveillon, que les 
 maquereaux et les chevaliers de manchette de ce prince, que 
 ses gouines, Lameth, Barnave, Duport, Marat, Danton, font 
 leur impossible pour afin de nous donner le change sur le 
 compte de ce prince manque, qu'ils mettent tout le monde en 
 
 1 He spoke of Bailly as Monseigneur le Maire. Though he had to 
 retract it, Aulard remarks that the ' plaisanterie, toute grossiere qu'elle fut, 
 resumait a merveille les griefs populaires. ' Rev. Fr, xxiv. 122. 
 
 2 For minuter details of how this came about, see note at the end of the 
 chapter. 
 
1789 CHARGES OF ORLEANISM, VENALITY 2$ 
 
 ribotte pour nous empaumer, que ce sont encore eux qu'avons 
 mis le feu aux dtouppes entre les vainqueurs de la Bastille et 
 les gardes franchises.' 
 
 Here we see Danton coupled with Lameth, Barnave, Du- 
 port, and Marat. Louvet and Barbaroux, who brought the 
 same charges against him in their memoirs, coupled him with 
 Robespierre. Finally, as if in a burlesque, Robespierre 
 charged him with the crime imputed to himself by Louvet and 
 Barbaroux. That Danton, before the idea of a republic 
 dawned on his mind and no one thought seriously of a re- 
 public before the flight to Varennes may have thought of 
 using the rebellious whims of Orleans as a lever against the 
 Court is probable enough, and he may even have imagined he 
 could make a constitutional puppet out of him more easily than 
 out of the stolid claimant to divine right, but there is no proof 
 of it, and there is no shadow of proof that he took the money 
 of Orleans, supposing that close-fisted intriguer ever to have 
 shown a disposition to loose his purse-strings. What is certain 
 is that, whereas it would assuredly have been the Duke's 
 policy to back up Danton if Danton had been his man, Dan- 
 ton and his district met with no such support in the ' Journal 
 of the Friends of the Constitution,' edited by the Duke's 
 secretary, Laclos. But what seems conclusive is that in 1793, 
 when Danton demanded that Orleans should be sent to the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal, the Duke said not a word in retalia- 
 tion, though Danton's reputation was at his mercy, if Lafayette's 
 tales had been true. 
 
 As to Mirabeau's accusations, the words of a prostitute on 
 another woman's purity would be as convincing. ' Cest un 
 bois ' rose only too readily to his cynical lips. Venal intriguer 
 himself, he scattered charges of venality right and left ; but 
 while he was being paid Danton was being prosecuted, and the 
 Court would never have countenanced the prosecution of a 
 creature whom it paid; It is curious, too, if Danton had been 
 on such treacherous intimacy with Mirabeau as was imputed 
 to him at his trial, that Mirabeau should allude to him as the 
 
26 UFE OF DANTON 1789 
 
 Court's enemy, and that not a word to incriminate him can be 
 quoted from Mirabeau's adopted son, who came into possession 
 of the family papers, nor from Mirabeau's friend, Dumont, who 
 is not silent about Mirabeau's intimacy with Camille Des- 
 moulins. Anyone who thinks such considerations inconclusive, 
 and that Danton was so artful an actor in the 'demagogic 
 drama ' as to treble the parts of Royalist, Orleanist, Democrat, 
 in 1789, and fill his pockets at the same time from three 
 treasuries, should at least weigh well the resolution passed 
 with reference to yet other devices of the enemy by the men 
 who knew him best, the members of the Cordeliers district, 
 on December 1 1 of that year. 
 
 The General Assembly of the Cordeliers District, hearing 
 that enemies of the State have calumniously disseminated 
 stories against M. Danton to wit, that he has illicitly tampered 
 with their suffrage, and procured a unanimous vote for the 
 prolongation of his presidency by bribes ; considering that 
 such calumnies are as injurious to the dignity of the Assembly 
 and the rectitude of its members as to the loyal and 
 indefatigable zeal of the President of their choice.; considering 
 that such rumours, however contemptible and unworthy of the 
 Assembly, may, in circumstances so delicate, put weapons in 
 the hands of the enemies of liberty, 
 
 Hereby declares (i) that the unanimous vote for con- 
 tinuing M. Danton's presidency is only the just reward of his 
 courage, talents, and patriotism alike in his civic and his 
 military capacity as evinced by the strongest and most striking 
 proofs. 
 
 (2) That the gratitude of the Assembly to its beloved 
 President, its highest esteem for his rare qualities, and its 
 enthusiasm in recording its vQte for his re-election are fatal to 
 all insinuations of fqul play. 
 
 (3) Tha.t the Assembly is proud to possess SQ stalwart a. 
 champion of liberty, and is happy in being a.ble |q giy rn'rn. 
 reiterated proofs of its confidence. 
 
 (4) That the Assembly hereby orders that this resolution 
 be communicated to the other fifty-nine districts of Paris, 1 
 
 1 As the democrat he was, and always remained, Danton had in 1789 
 waged a long war, the upshot of which was his own election to the 
 
1789 STRUGGLE WITH COMMUNE 2/ 
 
 Commune and the assertion of the principle that representatives must 
 obey their constituents' mandate. 
 
 The history of the struggle was this. In July 1789 the Electoral 
 Assembly at the H6tel de Ville invited the districts to choose two 
 deputies apiece for the new Commune. These in their turn called on the 
 sixty districts to choose five deputies apiece, and the 300 so elected sat as 
 a provisional Commune till October 8, 1790. The Assembly of the 
 H6tel de Ville submitted this plan, while it was being executed, to the 
 districts, and the Cordeliers, though they elected five deputies, protested 
 against their hand being so forced. To emphasise their protest they laid 
 certain injunctions on the five, and, when the Commune objected, retorted 
 by making the injunctions imperative. Their resolution was signed by 
 Danton as president, and the five were required to take an oath to carry 
 it out. Two of the five, Peyrilhe and Crohare, took the oath. Three 
 resigned. On the three, elected in place of them, coming to take their 
 seats in the Commune, Peyrilhe and Crohare* were questioned as to the 
 oath. Peyrilhe would say nothing, and resigned. Crohare 1 gloried 
 in his district's action. The Commune quashed the election and, 
 reinstating the old three members, expelled Crohare*. Danton, on the 
 ground that as long as the Commune was only provisional, the districts 
 could impose any mandate they thought proper on their representatives, 
 appealed to the Assembly, which finally decided that matters should stand 
 as they had done on November i<x The five originally elected thus 
 became once more representatives of the Cordeliers. Four, however, 
 resigned, and three of those replacing them were probably the same men 
 who replaced them before, so that Danton practically won the battle. 
 He himself in the middle of January was elected representative of the 
 district, but objections were raised, against his admission, based on 
 Lafayette's report of the Marat affair. The Cordeliers protested and the 
 Commune gave way. It kept him, however, in the background as much 
 as possible, though on one occasion he was member of a deputation 
 appointed to thank the King for presenting the Commune with the royal 
 bust. (Rh). Fr. xxiv. 113, and following pages.) 
 
28 LIFE OF DANTON 1790 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 1790 
 
 FRIENDSHIP WITH DESMOULINS AS YET MONARCHIST NOT ELECTED 
 TO MUNICIPAL COUNCIL SPOKESMAN OF THE PEOPLE TURNS 
 
 OUT MINISTERS COMMANDANT IN NATIONAL GUARD CONFRONTS 
 
 REACTIONARIES 
 
 THE year 1790 was probably the hopefullest of Dan ton's short 
 life. The first child of his happy marriage was born in June. 
 He signed the marriage contract of his friend, Camille 
 Desmoulins, in December. They were already, perhaps, 
 planning the two households of No. i Cour du Commerce, 
 where Danton was to occupy the upper and Desmoulins the 
 lower storey; 1 The lately formed Cordeliers Club was close at 
 
 1 Claretie's Desmoulins, pp. 181 and 199. It is clear, however, from 
 the ' Almanach Royal ' referred to by M. Aulard, Rev. Fr. xxiv. 114, that 
 Danton came to the Cour du Commerce in 1788, and we know that in 
 March 1793 he occupied ihejirsf floor, while Lucile's language about the 
 events of August 9-10, 1792, seems to show that the two families were 
 then in separate though adjacent houses. She says that she was in her 
 apartment and Mme. Danton with her when ' nous entendimes crier et 
 pleurer dans la rue . . . et nous parttmes pour aller chez Danton. On 
 criait aux armes et chacun_y courait. Nous trouvames la porte de la cour 
 du commerce fermee.' . . . ' Nous voulumes entrer par chez ie boulanger ' 
 (Bougeart, p. 67). And in a curious letter written by her on the loth 
 (see Beaumont-Vassy's Memoires secrets du dix-neuvtinie stick, p. 29), 
 ghe wrote to her mother : ' C'est de chez Danton que je t'ecris,' which she 
 would hardly have done if she and Danton lived on two floors in the same 
 house. Michelet, b. iv. c. vi. and b. xvi. c. iv. describes Desmoulins as 
 living in the Rue de 1'Ancienne Comedie on the second floor of a house in 
 which Freron occupied the first. This street, close to the Cour du 
 
1790 DANTON A MONARCHIST 29* 
 
 hand. 1 The two friends had their differences, and two years 
 later Desmoulins described Danton to his father as * a man 
 who esteems me too much to extend to myself the hatred which 
 he bears to my opinions.' But each must have equally exulted 
 as he saw abuse after abuse, privilege after privilege, of the old 
 regime kttres de cachet^ arbitrary imprisonment, feudal dues, 
 titular distinction, distinction of orders, religious disabilities, 
 parliaments, serfage, game-monopolies, coruees all swept 
 away within the twelve months beginning November 1789. 
 And how their eyes must have hailed the publication of the 
 Red Book with items much relished by Desmoulins, such as a 
 retiring pension of 1,700 livres to M. Ducrot for services as 
 hairdresser to Mademoiselle d'Artois, who died at three years 
 old, before she had any hair, and of 1,500 to Mademoiselle X. 
 because she once washed the Dauphin's ruffles ! 2 
 
 Yet Danton was a Monarchist still. Those speculations in 
 { La France Libre,' in which, the day after the taking of the 
 Bastille, Desmoulins originated the idea of a Republic, as he 
 inaugurated the Revolution with the green cockade, were for 
 Danton not as yet within the sphere of practical politics. 
 On February 4 the national oath was renewed by the 
 Assembly and the Municipality, and the ceremony seemed to 
 him of happy omen. 3 When the last official l je le jure' 
 had been uttered at the Town Hall his voice arose declaring 
 that the people would like to participate in the oath, which 
 was accordingly administered to them by Bailly to the accom- 
 
 Commerce, was afterwards called the Rue des Fosses St. -Germain des Pres. 
 The Municipal Register (Claretie's Desmoulins, p. 456) shows that in 
 April 1794 Desmoulins was living in the Place du Theatre Francais. 
 
 1 The exact date of its formation is not known, but it became the 
 district-centre when, in order to strike a blow at the power of the sixty 
 districts, which were so many ' democratic clubs ' (Rev. Fr. xxiv. 
 228), they were replaced by forty-eight sections. Homme (TEtai, 
 
 P: 73- 
 
 2 Rtv. de France et de Brabant, No. 20, quoted by Claretie, Desmoulins, 
 
 p. 42. 
 
 3 He had been elected member of the Commune in January. 
 
3<3 LIFE OF DANTON 1790 
 
 paniment of ringing cheers and rolling drums. But what 
 was this oath in which Danton proposed that the people should 
 participate ? It was an oath of fidelity to the Nation, the Law, 
 and the King ; to the constitution decreed by the National 
 Assembly and accepted by the King. Writers who have 
 taunted the subsequent assailants of royalty with violation 
 of this oath would do well to mark the order of its terms. 
 Fidelity is sworn, not to the King, the Law, and the Nation, 
 but to the Nation, the Law, and the King ; l not to the con- 
 stitution granted by the King, but to the constitution which 
 has been imposed on the King by the Assembly. The 
 English House of Commons in 1643 expelled Henry Marten 
 for declaring it better that one family should be destroyed 
 than many and not denying that he was alluding to the King 
 and the King's children. In September of the same year the 
 two Houses swore to venture their lives to preserve and defend 
 the King's majesty's person and authority. But a year later 
 the Independent leaders were discussing the deposition of 
 Charles, And why ? ' Providence and necessity, not design,' to 
 quote Cromwell, ' had cast them upon ' what even at the 
 outbreak of the civil war no man dreamt of. Cromwell's words 
 are as applicable to the French Revolution as to the English. 
 Lafayette relates that Danton once said to him, ' I am more 
 Monarchist than you.' He may have said so, and certainly 
 may have said so honestly. Everyone was Monarchist till 
 the Monarchy committed suicide, and to a man with Danton's 
 robust insight into actualities, a monarchy kept in leading 
 strings by the enemies of the Revolution may well have seemed 
 a monarchy only in name. It was not therefore with perjured 
 or hypocritical lips that Danton was spokesman for the people 
 on February 4. 
 
 His conduct on this occasion, however, did not conciliate 
 the more timid Parisians. When Bailly was re-elected mayor 
 in August, Danton could not obtain a place on the Muni- 
 
 1 Cf. Mtmoires de Madame de Tourzel, edit. 1884, i. 393. 
 
1790 INDICTMENT OF MINISTRY 31 
 
 cipal Council. l Nor was he one of the justices appointed the 
 same month. It is for his assailants to consider whether these 
 two rebuffs would have been likely if he had been backed by 
 Court influence or the purse of Orleans. The people did not 
 doubt him. On November 10 he was again their spokesman, 
 and in a more important matter than that of February 4, 
 appearing in the National Assembly to indict the Ministry on 
 behalf of the Commune of Paris. He had, as Lafayette 
 testifies, been the moving spirit of the Sections in drawing up 
 this indictment. Its uncompromising terms, which Bailly 
 who, as mayor, was forced to introduce the deputation could 
 have little relished, and which evoked effervescent comments 
 from the Abb Maury, are noticeable now for two reasons : 
 
 i. They state in the abstract what afterwards took concrete 
 shape in the creation of the Committee of Public Safety. 
 ' When the National Assembly, by the decree which we expect 
 from its wisdom, shall have completely destroyed the resources 
 and hopes of the enemies of liberty, it will constitute the 
 National High Court, and when some stringent example 
 shall teach ministers that responsibility is not nominal 
 we shall perhaps at length see them submit to the will of the 
 nation' 2. They boldly assert that the Paris Commune 
 represents France. 'This Commune, composed of citizens 
 who in some sort belong to the eighty-three departments ' 
 (Several members of the Right : * That is not true') 'eager 
 to fulfil, to the satisfaction of all good Frenchmen ' (Several 
 members of the Right: ' Thafs what we all are ') ' our duties 
 as first sentinels of the constitution,' &c. 
 
 The pretensions here advanced were countenanced by re- 
 sults. Two of the ministers assailed, the Marquis de la Tour 
 du Pin, Minister for War, and the Archbishop of Bordeaux, 
 Keeper of the Seals, were dismissed that month ; Saint- Priest, 
 
 1 He was elected by the Section Theatre Frar^ais one of the ninety-six 
 'Notables' of the Council- General, but his election was quashed by the 
 other Sections, and he was not chosen at the second election. Rh<. 
 Fr. xxiv. 231, 232. 
 
32 LIFE OF DANTON 1790 
 
 Minister of the Interior, in the following January. Such was 
 the outcome of what pictorial history calls ' the first apparition 
 of this Medusa's head.' Four days later Danton was appointed 
 Commandant of the Cordeliers battalion of National Guards. l 
 The thought of his reception by Lafayette tickled Freron. 
 ' Cela sera curieuxj he wrote. 
 
 But though Danton could take a tolerably cheerful view of 
 the political as well as the domestic horizon, there were 
 threatening clouds in sight. The effects of the suppression of 
 monastic establishments and the confiscation of church 
 property were already ominous. The grievances of the army 
 had come to a head at Nancy, and insubordination had 
 apparently been quenched in blood. Reactionaries, clerical 
 and aristocratic, took heart, and daily became more insolent. 
 Spadassins swaggered about the streets of Paris till Spadassini- 
 cides proved that two could play at the same game. Charles 
 Lameth was forced into a duel, but the people retaliated by 
 sacking the Hotel de Castries. The strife of Frenchmen, 
 though in this case dangerous to the Court, favourable to the 
 people, could never give Danton pleasure. 'Excidat ilia 
 dies aevo ' was the sentiment of the Cordeliers words as noble 
 then as when uttered by the Chancellor de 1'Hospital after the 
 Day of St. Bartholomew. 
 
 Danton had shown in July that he personally was not to be 
 cowed. In theatrical circles royalism was fashionable, and 
 when at the desire of their guests from Marseilles the Corde- 
 liers district asked for a representation of Chenier's tragedy, 
 ' Charles IX.,' at the Theatre Fran^ais, the management at first 
 refused, on the plea of being forbidden by the authorities, and, 
 though afterwards induced to consent, admitted a number of 
 young dandies in order to create a disturbance. Danton seems 
 to have met them more than half-way, putting on his hat at the 
 
 1 M. Aulard, Rev. Fr. xxiv. 235, thinks he resigned at once, 
 but Lafayette, Mhnoires, iii. 64, uses the words ' son bataillon ' with 
 reference to April 18, iJQij and M. Aulard admits that in any case 
 Danton retained great influence in the battalion. 
 
1790 COMING TO THE FRONT 33 
 
 end of the first act apparently as a sign of defiance, and, if 
 Marat is to be credited, to show his contempt for a survival of 
 the servility of the old regime. 
 
 The incident would not be worth recording except as show- 
 ing how 'the man of energy' as Marat calls him was in 
 small and great things alike steadily coming to be looked on 
 as the popular leader. In 1790, as Mirabeau's star waned, his 
 flamed higher. Mirabeau's hand had made the throne totter, 
 but he had not meant it to fall. It is very doubtful even if he 
 had lived that he could have saved it from Danton's strokes. 
 When he died there was no one, unless it was Lafayette, left 
 to guard it. And already Danton was measuring swords with 
 Lafayette. 
 
34 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 1791 
 
 STRUGGLES WITH LAFAYETTE LAFAYETTE'S CHARACTER ADMINIS- 
 TRATOR TO THE DEPARTMENT LETTER ACCEPTING APPOINT- 
 MENT FIRST RECORDED APPEARANCE AT THE JACOBINS 
 THWARTS KING'S JOURNEY TO ST. CLOUD 
 
 LAFAYETTE was contemptuously called by Mirabeau Grandison- 
 Cromwell. Some modern writers have forgotten that 
 Cromwell had not been rehabilitated in Mirabeau's time, and 
 that hypocrisy and cant were then recognised as parts of his 
 character. Mirabeau meant to sneer at Lafayette, but meant 
 something more. He certainly did not mean to attribute to 
 him such qualities as to-day would be associated with 
 Cromwell's name. What excited Mirabeau's scorn excited the 
 Queen's hatred. Those who think that because Lafayette 
 said a thing of Danton therefore it must be true, and that 
 because Danton may have said to Lafayette ' I am more 
 Monarchist than you,' therefore Danton was a cynical hypo- 
 crite, should note what Mirabeau thought of Lafayette in 1790. 
 His policy, he said, 1 
 
 will always be to fear and natter the people, to partake in its 
 errors from hypocrisy and self-interest; to support, whether 
 right or wrong, the most numerous party ; to terrify the 
 Court by popular riots, which he himself has planned or has 
 inspired the fear of, in order to render himself necessary ; to 
 prefer the public opinion of Paris to that of the rest of the 
 kingdom, because his strength does not come from the 
 provinces. The man, though no demagogue, will always be 
 dangerous to the royal power o long as the public opinion of 
 
 1 See Morse Stephens' Hist, of French Revolution, i. 317. 
 
1791 LAFAYETTE 35 
 
 Paris, of which he can be but the instrument, continues to be 
 a law to him. 
 
 Mirabeau, in short, thought Lafayette to be a weak and 
 vain hypocrite fundamentally actuated by selfish motives. 
 Dariton was of much the same opinion. Napoleon called 
 him a * noodle.' Jefferson said he had a ' canine appetite ' for 
 popularity and fame. Though we may discount somewhat 
 Mirabeau's estimate as that of an enemy of wholly opposite 
 temperament, it is plain that he was a vainglorious man, from 
 boyhood bent on playing a showy part in the world, and 
 returning from his petty though genuine success on the stage 
 of American affairs with the conviction that he was to be the 
 leading actor in the drama of the French Revolution. As 
 experience disillusioned him he seems to have become spiteful 
 as well as vain, and it is easy to conceive his disgust at 
 finding that he, an aristocrat, a soldier with scars, a handsome 
 cavalier, was outfaced and overborne by an ugly gowned 
 civilian. He is said to have something to do with he 
 certainly must have welcomed Danton's exclusion from the 
 Municipality. But his satisfaction was to be brief. On. 
 January 31, 1791, Danton was appointed Administrator to the 
 Department of Paris, i.e. he became one of the thirty-six 
 members of its Council-General, an honourable if not lucra- 
 tive position, and superior in dignity to that refused to him 
 five months before. The party of Bailly and Lafayette 
 groaned over his election, though in the Council his minority 
 was almost a minority of one ; l . but by the Jacobins it was 
 hailed as a heavy blow to municipal despotism. 
 
 It has been alleged that he owed his appointment to 
 Mirabeau Mirabeau, the supporter of the Veto and the 
 King's right to declare war ; Mirabeau ' suspect ' ; Mirabeau, 
 whom Desmoulins' journal, in the next number but one to that 
 
 1 Danton, according to Freron, said : ' I have made no recruits among 
 the Departmental donkeys ' (Bougeart, xxvii.), and is said to have attended 
 o.ily six meetings in 1791. Rev. Fran { -aise, xxiv. 239. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 which announced the appointment, reproached for ingratitude 
 to Danton ! The supposition is preposterous. Danton might 
 have helped Mirabeau, but could only have weakened himself 
 by intrigue with a declining, discredited man. 
 
 This is the letter which Danton wrote to M. Cerutti, presi- 
 dent of the Electoral Assembly, on his election : 
 
 I beg you, Sir, to announce to the Electoral Assembly that 
 I accept the duties to which it has been pleased to call me. 
 The votes with which Liberty's true friends honour me cannot 
 strengthen my sense of what I owe my country. To serve it is 
 a debt renewed day by day and ever increasing with increased 
 means of paying it. I may deceive myself, but I feel, by anti- 
 cipation, confident that I shall not disappoint the hopes of those 
 who have credited me with that fervour of enthusiastic 
 patriotism without which one can have no share either in winning 
 or securing freedom, and with that moderation necessary for 
 jeaping the harvest of our happy Revolution. Eager always to 
 have as my enemies the last partisans of overthrown despotism, 
 I care not for calumny. I have only one ambition to add to 
 the esteem of my fellow-citizens who have done me justice that 
 of those well-meaning men who cannot be for ever blinded by 
 baseless prejudice. But however opinion as to my public life 
 may fluctuate, as I am convinced that it is for the interest of 
 all that the people's supervision of its agents should be free 
 from all restriction and all danger, even in the case of men who 
 may not shrink from accusations as false as they are grave, I 
 pledge myself to reply to detraction only by my acts, and to 
 revenge myself only by giving stronger and stronger proofs of 
 my attachment to the Nation, the Law and the King, and of 
 my undying devotion to the maintenance of the Constitution. 
 
 Danton had now two footholds for resistance to the Bailly- 
 Lafayette party. As member of the Departmental Council he 
 had a hand in assessment of taxes, poor relief, hospitals, chari- 
 ties, education, agriculture, trade, sanitation, public security, 
 and, finally, the service and employment of the National Guard. 
 As commandant of the Cordeliers battalion of the National 
 Guard he had armed friends on whom he could rely. There 
 was an anti-Dantonist minority in it which tried to change its 
 name, but the failure of the attempt only strengthened his 
 
1791 PROPOSED JOURNEY TO ST. CLOUD 37 
 
 position. It was not long before he had need of all his 
 resources. Meanwhile his first recorded appearance at the 
 Jacobins is to be noted as having taken place on March 31, 
 when he put Collot d'Herbois into a great rage by sharply 
 criticising his praise of a certain M. Bonne-Carrere. 
 
 The occasion of the collision between Lafayette and Dan- 
 ton was the King's attempt to leave Paris in order to perform 
 the ceremonies of Easter at St. Cloud. Stories were in circu- 
 lation of his slights to the clergy who had taken the constitu- 
 tional oath, and he was suspected of hoping to receive the 
 sacraments at St. Cloud from the cleaner hands of nonjurors- 
 As a matter of fact he was afflicted by sore qualms of 
 conscience. In assenting to the civil constitution of the clergy 
 he felt he had committed heinous sin. He quite meant to set 
 himself right with Heaven by breaking his oath as soon as 
 possible ; but meanwhile, as long as he kept it, was he fit to 
 receive the sacraments ? A curious but characteristic dilemma 
 of this most unkingly of kings ! So he consulted the Bishop 
 of Clermont, confessing his scruples, and pleading in extenua- 
 tion his purpose, as soon as he should fully recover his power, 
 to restore the rights of the Church. The Bishop's answer, 
 reeking though it did with episcopal unction, was not altogether 
 such as bishops are wont to make to kings. It was eminently 
 unconsoling. In plain though dulcet terms he told Louis that 
 he ought to have braved martyrdom and that he ought not to 
 receive the sacraments ; and though beginning with an invo- 
 cation ' of wisdom from above ' he ended more practically by 
 a candid exposition of the mundane reasons which dictated his 
 advice. To avoid communicating in the parish church, and 
 thereby rendering the scandal more scandalous, the King would 
 have to communicate in his own chapel. But by this * you will 
 expose yourself to what you so prudently have at heart to avoid.' 
 
 The wretched King, unassisted by such cold comfort j 
 thought he could turn the position by going to St. Cloud. 
 Probably, too, he had other than spiritual tricks in his mind. 
 The Parisian populace did not believe his purpose to be purely 
 
38 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 devotional, though as such they decidedly disapproved of it. 
 They thought, not without good reason, that he meant to show 
 them a clean pair of heels. Every morning since the autumn 
 of 1789 some of them had visited the Tuileries to make sure 
 with their own eyes that he was not gone. And now, on 
 April 1 8, he was going. When the royal carriage appeared in 
 the Place du Carrousel it was mobbed. Lafayette was sent 
 for. He was determined that the King should go ; the people 
 were determined he should not. Bailly's entreaties were as 
 futile as his. 
 
 Danton was at the National Assembly when Talleyrand 
 called his colleagues of the Department into a room there 
 where Lafayette and Bailly had come urging that force should 
 be used to clear a passage for the King. Their faces fell when 
 Danton entered, but, as they persisted in their demand, he 
 said : * I have already subjected myself to arrest in my country's 
 service, but if I should be sent to the High Court for it I tell 
 you plainly I am going to denounce you to the people. They 
 are clearly right. You want to massacre them for obeying the 
 supreme law of the people's good. Well, you must massacre 
 me too, for if I cannot thwart your mad proclamation of 
 martial law here I will run and resist it at the people's side.' 
 On Lafayette offering his resignation Danton said : * Only a 
 coward quits his post in a time of peril. Besides, the Depart- 
 ment did not appoint you. You must give in your resignation 
 to the forty-eight Sections which elected you General. 
 Kersaint seconded him equally hotly, and ' Mottie ' went off 
 in a towering rage. Danton then ran to the Caserne de 
 1'Observance, the headquarters of the Cordeliers battalion, and 
 brought the force to the Carrousel. It was a rough shock to 
 Lafayette's vanity to find that the National Guard, his children, 
 as he called them, his worshippers, as he believed them to be, 
 menaced him when he spoke of martial law, and cheered him 
 when he threatened to throw up his command. 1 
 
 1 See Robinet's Le Mouvement Religieux a Paris pendant la Revolu- 
 tion^ i. 472 and following pages. 
 
1791 ATTITUDE OF THE DEPARTMENT 39 
 
 At last the King gave way. Then Danton went to the 
 Departmental Office at the Palais de Justice, and a remonstrance 
 to the King was drawn up, which he and Kersaint inspired 
 and Sieyes and Talleyrand may have toned down. To Bertrand 
 de Molleville it seemed the language of * cannibals/ to Camille 
 Desmoulins the words of a paladin of romance, the first 
 perhaps ever addressed to a king in the style of a free people. 
 In it the King was told that enemies of liberty were shedding 
 hypocritical tears over religion and working upon his conscience 
 for their own ends ; that he should cease to favour the 
 refractory, assure foreign nations he was king of a free people, 
 dismiss evil counsellors, and choose a new Ministry. The 
 Department also passed a resolution for the convocation of 
 the Sections, that they might vote Aye or No to these two 
 questions : ' Ought the King to be asked to go, as he had 
 intended? 5 'Ought he to be thanked for abstaining from 
 going in order to avoid a riot ? ' This truly astonishing reso- 
 lution made more astonishing by the fact that the ex-duke and 
 Laodicean revolutionist, Larochefoucauld, was Departmental 
 President was followed by a long-winded proclamation, in 
 which we may be sure Danton had no share, exhorting the 
 citizens after this fashion : * People attribute to the King a 
 design of severing himself from the nation, and so breaking his 
 royal oath. Citizens, can you forget his probity? He is said 
 to encourage the refractory priests. Have you forgotten he 
 has sworn to maintain the Constitution ? ' &c. 
 
 The inanity of such' platitudes, long drawn out like the 
 lullaby of a loquacious nurse to a fractious baby, at first suggests 
 irony ; but it was clearly hoped that they would tranquillise 
 Paris. One sentence, however, is memorable for something 
 besides its absurdity : ' The citizens of Paris, who form only one 
 section of the French people, can as such only act by addresses 
 and petitions.' Considering that the people had just acted to 
 much purpose by quite other agencies we can imagine their 
 titters as they read ; but this belittlement of Paris did not, we 
 may be sure, provoke smiles. Like the Department, the 
 
40 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 Municipality was eager to have its say, and, like the Depart- 
 ment, warned the King against evil counsellors whose loyalty 
 meant trickery, whose power was abuse of power, and whose 
 fidelity was that of lazy drones to the hive's honey. 
 
 If we wonder at a Department blowing hot and cold, and a 
 Municipal Bailly backing Lafayette one day and signing such 
 an address the next, we must remember what historians have 
 sometimes forgotten first, that there must have been acute 
 divisions in each body likely to account for much inconsistency ; 
 secondly, that men like Bailly, who dearly loved preaching, 
 would like to lecture Louis, though disinclined to interfere with 
 his liberty ; and thirdly, that ex officio both Larochefoucauld 
 and Bailly were bound often to appear to countenance what 
 they really disapproved of. What is certain is that such men 
 disapproved of Danton even more than of the King. Danton 
 published his defiance of Lafayette and Lafayette's wish to fire 
 on the people. The Department contradicted him, saying it 
 had held two meetings on April 18, that Lafayette had made 
 no such proposal at the first, which took place during the mob's 
 meeting, and at which Danton was not present, and that he 
 could not have proposed it at the second, when Danton was 
 present, because the mob had already dispersed. But the 
 words assumed to have been used by Danton at the Palais de 
 Justice seem to have been really uttered in the room at the 
 National Assembly. Camille Desmoulins, it is true, adds to a 
 confusion of places not unnatural in such feverish moments by 
 making Danton say he had spoken ' dans la tribune du departe- 
 mentj but there can be no real doubt of the part played by his 
 friend on this memorable day. Lafayette ludicrously pretends 
 that he was in the Court's pay, and provoked the riot in order 
 to give the King a pretext for posing before Europe as a prisoner. 
 But though Lafayette might rage and the Department imagine 
 a vain thing, those hours during which the King sat waiting in 
 his carriage added a cubit to Danton's reputation in the eyes of 
 the Parisians. Mirabeau had died on the 2nd. On the i8th 
 Lafayette was shown to be a shadow. His resignation and 
 
1701 DANTON'S VICTORY 41 
 
 subsequent withdrawal of it were equally useless, and Danton, 
 from that day forward, was the foremost man of action in Paris 
 that is to say, in France. 
 
 He triumphed, in fact, all along the line. The feeble 
 attempt of the Department to throw responsibility on the 
 Sections was defeated by his inducing them to vote that it was 
 not a subject for their deliberations. And the King who on 
 the i Qth indignantly told the Assembly he was still determined 
 to go to St. Cloud, stayed at home, fearing for ' our good priests.' 
 He even issued a manifesto to Europe, which he induced 
 M. de Montmorin, in spite of his disgust and his proffered 
 resignation, to sign, protesting that he was perfectly free when 
 he was in fact a prisoner, and praising a Constitution which had 
 robbed him of his throne. 1 
 
 1 B. de Molleville's Annals of Fr. Rev. tr. by Dallas, ch. xxxix. 
 
42 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 1791 continued 
 
 KING'S PLOTS DENUNCIATIONS OF SIEVES AND LAFAYETTE- 
 CHARGES OF VENALITY LAFAYETTE'S STORY ABOUT MONTMORIN 
 BERTRAND DE MOLLEVILLE'S LETTER 
 
 COWARDLY though the King's proclamation seemed to Mont- 
 morin, it was not prompted by cowardice. It was a deliberate 
 attempt to throw dust in the people's eyes. At the very 
 moment it was written the King's chief embarrassment was 
 which to choose of plots for the overthrow of his lauded Con- 
 stitution and for the re-enslavement of his free people. Should 
 he escape to Montmedy ? Should he listen to Breteuil, 
 Montmorin, or Calonne ? Or should he be guided to less 
 irredeemable issues by the Lameths ? He himself hankered 
 after Montmedy. And had he manoeuvred and dissimulated 
 only to get out of Paris much might have been forgiven him. 
 But the Montmorin plan was of more far-reaching villainy. 1 
 It was to induce the Emperor, Prussia, Spain, Naples, and 
 Sardinia to declare war on France in order to create a pretext 
 for the King putting himself at the head of the army. The 
 Queen, by a refinement of treachery, was to stay in Paris and 
 make herself popular by sham appeals to the Emperor and the 
 King of Naples to withdraw from the coalition. The National 
 Guard was to be dissolved. A new Constitution was to be 
 voted. The King was to re-enter Paris once more indeed a 
 king. 
 
 To all this treachery the King was privy while the Assembly 
 
 1 B. de Molleville's Annals of the French Rev. ch. xxxix. 
 
1791 DENUNCIATION OF SIEVES 43 
 
 were receiving his manifesto to Europe with rapturous cheers 
 and while the people were as yet not dreaming of a republic. 
 But dissimulate as he might, something kept leaking out. 
 The Moniteur published a letter practically revealing the 
 Montmedy plot in outline. Montmorin in a letter to the 
 Assembly denied on his responsibility, on his head, on his 
 honour, that the project ever existed, denying the charge as an 
 injustice most injurious to the Royal Family. 1 He is said not 
 to have known of the Montmedy plot, but all the while he 
 was himself at the bottom of another and a baser one with 
 precisely the same object in view. Again the Assembly broke 
 out into vehement cheering as the Jesuitical letter was read ; 
 for it was a royalist Assembly still. Yet in a series of 
 questions propounded to the King and Queen on behalf of the 
 Comte d'Artois, to this one, * In what state is the mind of the 
 people ? Have your Majesties in the Assembly any persons 
 on whom you can rely ? ' we find this answer of the Queen : 
 * The mind of the people is detestable ; they are for no king. 
 We have no person in the Assembly. The only Deputy who 
 made overtures to us is dead.' 2 
 
 It is to be observed that she does not allude to Danton. 
 He was not, it is true, in the Assembly ; but if he had been in 
 the Court's pay is it conceivable she would not have men- 
 tioned him? Of his fast-increasing importance at this time 
 there can be no doubt. He summoned the Municipality 
 before the Department for threatening to prosecute the Corde- 
 liers Club, and the Department prohibited the prosecution. 
 And in the new ''Journal des debats de la societe des amis de la 
 Constitution] where for the first time his speeches are properly 
 reported, we find a fierce denunciation of Sieyes and Lafayette 
 on June 20. Sieyes, he said, was 
 
 priest to the core, who had defended tithes, opposed natio 
 nalisation of Church property, and tried to fetter the press. 
 And now he was proposing two chambers. Lafayette was his 
 coadjutor and had proposed the same thing to himself a year 
 
 J B. de Molleville's Annals of Fr. Rev, ch. xxxix. 2 Ibid. ch. xl. 
 
44 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 before, trying to sap his patriotism by reminders how he had 
 been ostracised by the Sections while Bailly was re-elected 
 Mayor. Both of them were traitors, as everyone was who 
 proposed disunion while the State was in the throes of a second 
 birth. They wanted to remain nobles. France had a horror 
 of nobles. Unity was what was necessary for the Revolutio- 
 nary drama unity of time, place, and action. The enemy was 
 half beaten now his plots were unmasked, but there must be 
 no false security. ' Do not forget that it is with a priest, and 
 the priest Sieves, you have to do.' 
 
 Perhaps Danton was speaking at the very hour when the 
 King was starting on his fatal flight to Varennes, and if the 
 idea of divided chambers shocked him we may judge how in- 
 furiated he was by the King's attempt to divide France. In 
 fiercer tones than before he thundered at the Jacobins against 
 Lafayette. The President had announced that Lafayette, 
 Bailly, and the Ministers were coming to the meeting. ' If 
 the traitors show themselves/ he said, ' I must speak. 
 Willingly would I see two scaffolds prepared, and willingly 
 would I die on one of them, if I do not prove to them face to 
 face that their heads ought to roll at the feet of the nation 
 against which they have never ceased to conspire.' 
 
 Turning to Lafayette on his entry he said : * I am about to 
 speak as if I were in the presence ot God himself, and I 
 would gladly brave death to say to your face, M. Lafayette, 
 what I would say in the presence of Him who reads all hearts.' 1 
 He went on to speak of Lafayette's having tampered with him, 
 of the scheme for two chambers ' a torch of discord thrown, 
 not, I think, without design, amid the eighty-three depart- 
 ments ' ; of the harshness shown to the rioters at Vincennes as 
 contrasted with the leniency to the chevaliers du poignard; of 
 the King's Guard, that 2ist of June, being the same grenadiers 
 who had been his guard on the i8th of April, weeded only of 
 the patriotic fourteen who had opposed his flight to St. Cloud ; 
 and then, declaring that time was short and that all those 
 
 . * Revolutions de France et de Brabant ', quoted by Bougeart, p. 46. 
 
1791 DENUNCIATION OF LAFAYETTE 45 
 
 present would eagerly listen to Lafayette's defence, he con- 
 cluded 
 
 You have waited to be reconciled with us till now now, 
 when the people have a perfect right to take your life. You 
 have come for an asylum here - here, where all your friends, 
 your confidants, your journalists, your parasites, have gone on 
 declaring is the den of factionists, libellers, robbers, regi- 
 cides. They will show themselves more generous than you 
 these factionists, these assassins. They grant you asylum. 
 But answer me this : You swore the King should not go. You 
 made yourself surety for him. Choose one of two things. 
 Either you are a traitor who has betrayed his country or a dolt 
 to make yourself responsible for a man over whom you have no 
 hold. On the most favourable construction you have shown 
 yourself incapable of your command. I have nothing more to 
 say, but I have said enough to prove that while I despise 
 traitors I do not dread assassins. 
 
 A fierce, uncompromising speech, delivered, it must be re- 
 membered, immediately after the discovery of the King's 
 flight. And yet the man denounced so contemptuously as a 
 fool or a traitor, or a compound of both, could, if we can credit 
 him, have confounded his bold accuser with a word. Lafa- 
 yette says that he knew that Montmorin had in his hands 
 Danton's receipt for a bribe of 90,000 francs from the Court, 
 that to mention it would have been to hand over Montmorin 
 to death, and that Danton counted on his silence. Lafayette, 
 in his rancour against Danton, forgot that he, posing always as 
 a precisian, convicted himself, if his story were true, of guilty 
 knowledge of the Court's bribery. AVhy should he screen 
 Montmorin ? He was bound to denounce him. And why 
 should denunciation have involved Montmorin's death ? 
 Could not Lafayette at the head of all the National Guards 
 have managed to get him out of the way ? Or did he per- 
 chance fear Danton's handful of Cordeliers ? But they would 
 have turned on Danton. It was Danton's life, not Mont- 
 morin's, that would have been in danger from the mob, if mob 
 violence were feared. In such circumstances it is Judas who 
 
46 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 is punished first. As to any other sort of death, the time was 
 June 1791 : executions had not begun. 
 
 And the receipt. How often do men give a receipt for 
 bribes ? And, if given, what became of it ? Why was it 
 never produced by Montmorin or the Court to ruin Danton 
 when Danton was the Court's most energetic foe ? Who ever 
 held such a trump card without playing it ? Lafayette says 
 that Montmorin told Danton that it had been burnt. That 
 hardly tallies with what Bertrand de Molleville says ; but is 
 such idiocy conceivable? Why should Danton get a man 
 killed for having evidence against him when the evidence was 
 destroyed? It is on a par with Lafayette's suggestion that 
 Roland made away with documents in the iron cupboard 
 damaging to Danton. 1 Roland Danton's enemy ! What 
 would not the Girondins have given for papers incriminating 
 Danton ? The real reason why the receipt was not produced 
 was because it never existed. Lafayette should have spoken 
 out and on the spot, at the Jacobins, or have for ever held his 
 peace. Lamer afterthought as a plea for silence was never re- 
 sorted to by resentful vanity. 
 
 It is possible, however, that Lafayette did see some sort of 
 receipt which he greedily assumed to be that of Danton, who 
 never wrote a line, it should be remembered, if he could 
 help it. Bertrand de Molleville's unblushing narrative should be 
 read in this connection. He relates how he deliberately 
 concocted a letter to Danton, full of falsehoods, by which he 
 hoped to play upon his fears, and so help the King. Let him 
 speak for himself. 
 
 I made no scruple of employing falsehood in order to tame 
 the fury of that monster (Danton). On December n (1792) I 
 sent him the following letter : ' You ought no longer to remain 
 ignorant, sir, that among the papers entrusted to my care about 
 the end of last June by the late M. de Montmorin, which I 
 have brought to this country (England) with me, I find a note 
 of different sums which you received from the funds for secret 
 expenses of the Foreign Department. The occasions on which 
 
 1 MetnoireS) ii. 435. 
 
1791 BERTRAND DE MOLLEVILLE 47 
 
 you received these sums, and the different dates, are specified, 
 as also the person who negotiated that affair. Your connection 
 with this person is clearly proved by a letter in your own hand, 
 pinned to the note in question, which is entirely in the hand- 
 writing of M. de Montmorin. I have not hitherto made any 
 use of those papers, but I warn you that they are joined to a 
 letter I have written to the president of the National Conven- 
 tion, which I send by this same courier enclosed to a confi- 
 dential friend, with orders to send the letter to the president, 
 and to cause your &'//<?/ and the note to be printed and placarded 
 in the corner of every street if you do not conduct yourself in 
 the King's affair as a man who has been so well paid ought to 
 do. But if, on the contrary, you exert yourself to render him 
 the services which you have in your power, be assured they will 
 not pass unrewarded. You need have no uneasiness with re- 
 gard to this letter, as nobody shall know that I have written to 
 you.' (Signed) * BERTRAND.' 
 
 The truth of this matter was that M. de Montmorin had 
 communicated the affair to me, and showed me the papers, but 
 never gave them into my hands, as I had asserted to Danton, 
 who, knowing the intimacy in which I had been with M. de 
 Montmorin, could not doubt, after what I had written, of my 
 having them in my possession. 
 
 A remarkable letter ! A game of bluff cunningly played. 
 Now, if ever, Danton must flinch. Eagerly we look for the 
 denouement, which the very next words reveal with dramatic 
 brevity. ' I received no answer to my letter.' Not one line ! 
 M. de Molleville appears to think Danton wanting in common 
 politeness. The 'monster' clearly had 'no uneasiness with 
 regard to this letter ' in quite another sense than that attached 
 to those words by his correspondent. ' But,' adds M. de 
 Molleville, 
 
 I saw by the public papers that two days after that on which he 
 must have received it he caused himself to be deputed to the 
 Northern Army, and did not return to Paris till the day before 
 sentence was pronounced on the King. He voted for death at 
 the appel nominal, but without supporting his opinion, as was 
 his custom, by reasoning or any discourse whatever. 
 
 As if Danton could have saved his head by going to the 
 Northern Army, supposing Paris to be placarded with proofs of 
 
48 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 his treason ! But even so self-evident a reflection is unneces- 
 sary ; for none of the results attributed to the letter took place. 
 To the last M. de Molleville lies. The King was sentenced on 
 the i yth. Danton returned, not on the day before, but on the 
 1 4th. On the i6th he spoke strenuously for putting the King 
 to death, and on giving his vote said : ' No compromise with 
 tyrants. Kings are only struck at the head,' &c. 
 
 What candid reader will fail to see that every falsehood of 
 the knave testifies to Danton's innocence ? But this is not all. 
 Elsewhere he tells us of an unnamed Court spy employed by 
 Montmorin to bribe Danton, and admits that he himself did 
 not trust the man. Now, though neither Brissot nor Lafayette 
 is an unimpeachable witness, it is certainly curious that 
 Brissot should say he had seen Danton's receipt. But surely 
 a probable solution of the mystery is to be found in these 
 naive confessions of M. de Molleville. The go-between, 
 evidently a thorough-paced rogue, found he had to produce 
 Danton's signature for payment received. He could not get 
 it and he would not disgorge. So he niched the money and 
 forged the name. In any case Danton acted straightforwardly 
 throughout. He repeated his charges against Lafayette the 
 next day at the Jacobins, challenging him to reply. And wl 
 Bertrand de Molleville thus carried one step further Lafayet 
 ' I could an I would,' Danton treated him as contempt 
 as he had treated Lafayette. 1 
 
 sue tne 
 id when 
 fayettql 
 )tuously 
 
 1 Levasseur (Bougeart, p. 55) writes of this affair : ' Le bruit de corrup- 
 tion dont se vante Bertrand de Molleville est parvenu jusqu'a la Con- 
 vention. La Montagne, Danton a sa tete, a demande 1'examen des pieces ; 
 cet examen a eu lieu, et les accuses ont etc reconnus innocents.' 
 
J791 49 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 1791 continued 
 
 REPUBLICANISM ADDRESS OF THE CORDELIERS ATTACK ON THE 
 KING AT THE JACOBINS ADDRESS TO THE POPULACE. 
 
 THE Jacobins showed what they thought of Danton's attack 
 on Lafayette by accepting Desmoulins' offer of 1,000 copies of 
 his paper, in which it was chronicled, for distribution in the 
 Department of the Moselle. Meantime Danton was flying at 
 higher game. Till now he had been a monarchist. In * La 
 France Libre 'published July 15, 1789, Desmoulins had argued 
 that the only Government fit * for men, for Frenchmen, and 
 for the Frenchmen of this age ' was that of America and Athens. 
 He therefore had sounded the first republican note, and 
 he was proud of it. 'On July 12, 1789, there were perhaps 
 not ten republicans in Paris,' he writes, * and what covers the 
 Old Cordeliers with glory is that they began such an enter- 
 prise as the Republic with such small means.' But the 
 politics of Desmoulins were a pamphleteer's politics rather 
 than a statesman's, and his republicanism rather a matter of 
 sentiment than of deep-seated conviction. As he himself 
 said : ' Our republicans were for the most part youths who, 
 having been fed on Cicero at school, had conceived a passion 
 for liberty.' Of such might Brissot be, and it illustrates the 
 instability of Desmoulins to find him in 1792 reproaching that 
 publicist with prematurely professing republicanism. 1 It was also 
 in 1792 that Desmoulins wrote of Danton as 'a man who 
 1 Claretie's Desmoulins^ p. 180. 
 
 E 
 
50 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 esteems me too much to extend to myself the hatred he bears 
 to my opinions.' l What Desmoulins calls his ' opinions ' 
 Danton would have called his fitful likes and dislikes. He 
 himself, more practical and opportunist, had up to the flight 
 to Varennes forbidden himself 'to pronounce the word' 
 republic. So had Robespierre. 2 In 1791 3 he disclaimed any 
 hostility to monarchies as such. Republic and monarchy 
 were, he said, vague terms, apt to breed sects and sow 
 dissension, and a State, if free, was republican even though a 
 monarch were at the head of it. Danton had, no doubt, 
 theorised less than Robespierre, his one guiding principle 
 being that, monarchy or no monarchy, the people's will should 
 be enforced. But republicanism was now in the air. On 
 July i a prospectus of a journal called ' Le Republicain ' had 
 been posted at the entrance to the Assembly, 4 and with the 
 flight to Varennes he found himself at the parting of the ways. 
 He detested incompetence, and the King was incompetent. 
 He knew there could be no solid government if it was being 
 undermined by those in high places. And now it seemed clear 
 that no faith could be placed either in the King or Lafayette. 
 So when Robespierre, <fc propos of the flight to Varennes, be- 
 sought the Jacobins to repel every proposition for a republic, and 
 respect the decrees of the National Assembly, Danton replied : 
 ' How could the Assembly take on itself to pronounce judgment 
 when perhaps it would be reversed by that of the nation ? ' 5 
 Robespierre might sit on the fence till August 1792. The 
 Cordeliers Club made up its mind at once. It drew up an 
 address to the Assembly containing the essence of Danton's 
 policy, as no doubt it was the echo of his words. 
 
 We were slaves in 1789. We thought ourselves free in 
 1790. Legislators, you have assigned away the power of the 
 nation you represent. You have invested Louis XVI. with 
 unlimited authority. You have consecrated tyranny by con- 
 
 1 Claretie's Desmoulins, p. 181. 2 Ibid, p. 180. 
 
 8 July 13, L. Blanc, b. vi. c. vi. 4 Michelet, b. v. c. vi. 
 
 5 Proces, p. 215. 
 
1791 CORDELIERS MANIFESTO 51 
 
 stituting him an irremovable, inviolable, hereditary king. You 
 have consecrated the slavery of the French by declaring France 
 to be a monarchy. Good citizens have lamented it. There 
 have been violent conflicts of opinion. But this was the law 
 and we obeyed it. A healthier state of things we could only ex- 
 pect from the growth of intelligence and reason. This sham con- 
 tract between a nation which surrenders all and an individual who 
 gives nothing it seemed necessary to maintain, and till Louis XVI. 
 showed himself an ungrateful traitor we could only thank our- 
 selves for spoiling our own work. But times are changed. This 
 sham connection between people and King exists no longer. Louis 
 has abdicated. Henceforth he is nothing to us, nothing unless 
 he becomes our enemy. We are as we were after the taking of 
 the Bastille, free and without a king. Is it worth our while to 
 name another ? This Society is of opinion that a nation ought 
 to act either of itself directly or through officials removable and 
 chosen by itself; that it is unreasonable that any one man in 
 the State should possess such wealth, such prerogatives, as to 
 be able to corrupt the administrative body. It is of opinion 
 that no citizen of the State should be debarred from any State 
 post, and that the more important the post the shorter should 
 be the term of its occupation. Impressed with the truth and 
 importance of these principles, it can no longer be blind to the 
 fact that royalty, above all hereditary royalty, is incompatible 
 with liberty. Such is its belief, for which it holds itself re- 
 sponsible to all Frenchmen. It foresees a host of antagonists. 
 But was there no antagonism to the Declaration of Rights ? In 
 any case this question is important enough to deserve the 
 serious consideration of those who frame the laws. Once 
 already the Revolution has miscarried owing to lingering regard 
 for the phantom of royalty. That phantom has vanished. 
 Therefore, without fear and without terror, let us do everything 
 to prevent its resurrection. This Society would not, perhaps, 
 have demanded the suppression of royalty so soon if the King, 
 abiding by his oath, had regarded royalty as a duty ; if the 
 peoples, ever the dupes of this institution, so fatal to the human 
 race, had not at length opened their eyes to the light; but 
 to-day, when the King, free though he was to keep the crown, 
 has of his own accord abdicated ; to-day, when the voice of the 
 nation has made itself heard ; to-day, when all citizens are 
 disillusioned ; we make it our duty to act as the medium of its 
 will by demanding the destruction at once and for ever of this 
 scourge of liberty. You, legislators, have a striking warning 
 
 B 2 
 
52 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 before your eyes. Remember that after what has happened 
 you cannot possibly inspire the people with any confidence in 
 any functionary named king. Accordingly we conjure you by 
 our common country either at once to declare that France is 
 no more a monarchy, but that it is a republic, or at least to 
 wait till all the primary assemblies have expressed their will on 
 this momentous question before a second time plunging the 
 fairest empire on earth into the chains and fetters of monarchy. 
 
 Whatever else may be thought of it, no one can deny the 
 trenchant force of this manifesto, 1 so refreshingly free from the 
 eternal classicalities of Desmoulins and the eternal abstractions 
 of Robespierre. But it was not acceptable to the Jacobins. In 
 answer to a speaker in that society, on June 23, Danton said : 
 
 The individual declared King of the French, after having 
 sworn to maintain the Constitution, has become a fugitive, and 
 yet I hear someone say he has not forfeited his crown. But 
 this individual declared King of the French has signed a paper 
 whereby he declares he is going to seek means of destroying 
 the Constitution. The National Assembly ought first to put 
 forth the whole strength of the State to provide for its safety. 
 It should then confront him with this paper. If he acknow- 
 ledges it he is a criminal, unless we are to take him for an 
 imbecile. It would be a dreadful spectacle to exhibit to the 
 world if with the alternative of a criminal or an imbecile king 
 we did not choose the latter. The royal individual being an 
 imbecile can be no more king ; and what is necessary is not a 
 regent but a commission of restraint, such commission not to 
 be taken from the legislative body, but to consist of ten men 
 chosen by electors, one from each department, to be changed, 
 like members of the Legislature, every two years. 
 
 ' Ce rfest pas un regent qrfilfaut? The words are important. 
 If Danton had been in the pay of Orleans would he have used 
 them? 
 
 Soon afterwards, also at the Jacobins, he spoke as follows : 
 
 I will briefly refute M. Anthoine. He said that the previous 
 speaker was mistaken in alleging that the Constitution had not 
 
 1 ' Ou eclate tout le genie politique de Danton.' Procts, p. 211. 
 ' Ou 1'on ne pent guere meconnaftre la main ou 1'inspiration du president 
 perpetuel.' Horn me d'Etat, p. 79. 
 
1791 APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 53 
 
 safeguarded royalty, seeing that it had decreed a regency. 
 But M. Anthoine has not reflected that no judgment had then 
 been pronounced on the King. Well, that being so, it is not a 
 regent, but, royalty being now vacant, sequestration that is 
 wanted. 
 
 He added a warning against appearing to distrust the National 
 Assembly. 
 
 But ought we to be free from all apprehension ? It is in 
 my opinion, scandalous that the King has not been publicly 
 examined, scandalous that commissioners should be appointed, 
 who should wait in the royal ante-chamber and then be refused 
 admission because ' we are in our bath.' 
 
 A man who spoke thus meant business. To Danton's 
 matter-of-fact mind attempts to explain away the King's flight 
 by the fiction of his having been kidnapped, or to ignore it 
 on the pretext of his inviolability, or to draw a distinction 
 between his personal and official inviolability, seemed, what 
 they were, a farce. Timider or more pedantic men thought 
 that by accepting the farce they might escape a tragedy. 
 Bailly and the bourgeoisie were not for extreme measures. 
 Lafayette, like Danton, may have thought Louis an imbecile, 
 but Providence, he would reflect, had fully compensated 
 France by providing it with the wisdom of Lafayette. Danton 
 had logic on his side, but they had the law. So he appealed 
 from them to the populace. The Departmental Council had 
 been summoned by the National Assembly, on the news of the 
 King's flight, to permanent session in the hall next its own a 
 fate-laden summons, followed, as it immediately was, by the 
 request of the Sections also to sit permanently. As the 
 members of the Council marched through the streets Danton 
 harangued the people, denouncing traitors in Paris, attempts 
 to stifle inquiry, the ' Austrian Committee at the Tuileries,' 
 and declaring that the King would be a good riddance. 1 
 These thunder-charged clouds broke into flame on the Champ 
 de Mars on July 17. 
 
 1 Cf. Morse Stephens' Fr. Rev. i. 456. 
 
54 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 1791 continued 
 
 STATE OF PARTIES CHAMP DE MARS PETITION FLIGHT VISIT TO 
 ENGLAND MADE JOINT DEPUTY-PROCUREUR OF THE COMMUNE 
 SPEECH ON ELECTION ALWAYS CORDELIER AND DEMOCRAT. 
 
 THERE were from June 2 1 to July 1 7 three main currents of 
 opinion in Paris. The Assembly as a whole was for Monarchy 
 and Louis. The Jacobins as a whole were for Monarchy, but 
 not for Louis. The Cordeliers as a whole were for a Republic. 
 There were, too, in each cross-currents. In the Assembly 
 Constitutionalists like the Lameths and Barnave were becom- 
 ing more, and Robespierre less, Royalist. The Jacobins were 
 divided against themselves, part of them seceding to the 
 Feuillants, where the Lameths and Duport were leaders. 
 Marat, at one with the Cordeliers group in deriding the farci- 
 cal manoeuvres of the Assembly, still expressed himself 
 strongly in favour of constitutional royalty ; 1 royalty, however, 
 to be tempered by dictatorship in time of need. Besides these 
 groups and the offshoots from each there was an Orleanist 
 party, though not with Orleans at its head. On June 26 he 
 had, to the disgust of the extreme Royalists, renounced all pre- 
 tensions to regency. 2 
 
 The citizens of Paris were divided into two groups. The 
 bourgeoisie's revolution was won. It was satisfied with its 
 achievements, satisfied with having humiliated the King. 
 Barnave successfully appealed now to its selfishness and 
 
 1 Villiers' translation of Eire's Diary fa Citizen of 'Paris , i. 51. 
 
 2 M. viii. 764. 
 
1791 PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM 55 
 
 jealous dread of the people below it. It disliked the Queen. 
 It despised Louis. But it thought a king useful as a figure- 
 head. Its strength lay in the National Guard. In opposition 
 to the bourgeoisie opposition ever growing more acute was 
 the populace. The institution of Sections had by no means 
 fulfilled its object. Those that were democratic were leaven- 
 ing the lump. Danton stepped forward as their natural leader 
 against the Assembly's intrigues and the complicity of Bailly 
 and Lafayette. Bonneville, Fre"ron, Desmoulins were some of 
 his supporters. 
 
 Events moved fast. Billaud-Varenne on July i proposed 
 for discussion at the Jacobins the question- 'which was the 
 Government best for France, a Monarchy or a Republic.' 
 Instantly he was frowned down by the president, and it was 
 proposed that he should be expelled from the Society. But 
 shortly afterwards another member declared that a Republic 
 was inevitable, as the diet on which strong men throve best. 
 And Brissot, at this time a great admirer of Danton, on July 2 
 wrote that republicanism was winning and must win, because 
 truth wins ; that it was moving with a giant's strides, &c. On 
 the nth Voltaire's ashes were placed in the Pantheon. The 
 car which had brought them to Paris had on its two sides the 
 lines 
 
 ' Si Fhomme a des tyrans il les doit detroner? 
 
 ' Si Phomme est ne lib re il doit se gouvtrner? 1 
 The Assembly's evasion of the personal question as to the 
 King exasperated the popular leaders more and more. On the 
 1 5th, at the Jacobins, Danton strenuously defended the right of 
 petitioning for his dethronement, and that night Brissot and 
 Laclos Orleanist editor of the Jacobin journal proceeded to 
 settle the terms of a petition. Danton, it is said, was also 
 present, but did not stay long. Probably he was for much 
 more drastic terms than Brissot and Lacios. He left Brissot 
 writing it and Laclos dozing. Laclos, when Brissot had 
 finished, woke up, and after the words * provide for replacing ' 
 1 M. ix. 107. 
 
56 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 interpolated * by all constitutional means,' thus adroitly leaving 
 a door open for Orleans, his patron. 
 
 On the 1 6th Petion came to read the petition, but found 
 the Club deserted. The secession to the Feuillant Club had 
 taken place. This symptom of reaction being temporarily in 
 the ascendant had its counterpart in the streets, where passion 
 ran high. Rotondo was bludgeoned and half killed, Freron 
 nearly met the same fate. In the Assembly, on the i3th, 
 Vadier made a furious speech against the King. Frequent in- 
 terruptions evinced the royalist bias of his audience. He 
 deprecated them, saying, ' I am charged with speaking like 
 Marat. It is very seldom I speak at all.' ' So much the better, 
 sir, so much the better,' shouted his hearers. But on the i6th 
 this same Vadier, with equal fervour, forswore a republic and 
 all its works, this time winning for himself plaudits. 
 
 That day the petition was taken to the Champ de Mars, 
 and Danton harangued the crowd from the altar there. 1 The 
 words Laclos had inserted excited comment. The meeting 
 was divided, but those who were for expunging the words 
 carried the day. While it was being revised, another petition, 
 protesting not only against Louis, but against any king, was 
 drawn up by Peyre, Vachart, Robert, Demoy, and placed for 
 signature the next day, Sunday, on the altar. In the riot that 
 ensued three hundred were killed and wounded. Bailly and 
 Lafayette succeeded in cowing the people for the time. But 
 they were to take a terrible revenge in June and September 1 792. 
 The conquerors had mistaken for an emeute what was in reality a 
 manifestation of the will of Paris emerging out of incoherence. 
 
 Some say that on the evening of the i6th Danton went 
 to Fontenay-sur-Bois ; others that he went next day. In 
 either case it is a ridiculous supposition that he fled from 
 cowardice. There seemed little to fear. The people on the 
 1 6th had applied for leave to meet on the i7th, and had been 
 
 1 Erected (that the National Oath might be taken at it on July 14) in 
 1790. ' Un tertre que 1'on avait pompeusement decore du nom d'Autel 
 de la Patrie.' Laponneraye, Hist, de la Rev. Fr. i. ch. ii. 
 
1791 THE CHAMP DE MARS PETITIONS 57 
 
 officially told they were not breaking the law in doing so. 
 Sunday was a beautiful summer's day, and a few minutes 
 before the fusillade the crowd was singing and dancing as at a 
 fete. Danton, in his speech on the i6th, may have said all he 
 had to say with regard to the second petition, which the crowd 
 was bent on substituting for the first, and when next day's 
 meeting was sanctioned have gone from Paris for the Sunday. 
 If we knew what he said we should know why he went, but if 
 he had feared for himself he would never have spoken at the 
 altar in the morning. When he spoke of himself before his 
 judges as ' one of the authors of the petition ' he appears to 
 have been alluding to the second petition. 1 Having had 
 to do with the first he may not have cared overtly to father the 
 second, knowing that Brissot and the other Jacobins were 
 wavering, but he may have prompted it all the same. This 
 would account for its being drawn up by such obscure men as 
 three out of the four were, while Robert, the fourth, was an 
 ardent Dantonist. 
 
 The authorities, at all events, had no doubt as to the 
 advisability of punishing Danton's hostility. They at once 
 issued a warrant for his arrest, though on some petty charge to 
 which he alludes in his speech, soon to be quoted. He went 
 quickly from Rosny, near Vincennes, to Fontenay, Arcis, and 
 Troyes. Officers of the law were on his track at Arcis and 
 Troyes. One of them being recognised at Arcis was nearly 
 torn to pieces by the people. At Rosny his father-in-law's 
 house was beset and his step-brother maltreated. He himself 
 went to England, with results to be noticed hereafter, and 
 only returned to Paris when a friendly president of the 
 Tribunal of Cassation Garran Coulin had been appointed. 
 Perhaps he was not in much danger outside the Department 
 of Paris. But the Jacobins of Bar-sur-Aube wrote to him that 
 
 1 These words are purposely left as in the first edition. But see note 
 at the end of the chapter, where the whole question is discussed at length, 
 with reasons for thinking that, while the general account given in the text 
 is correct, it may have been the first petition to which he alludes. 
 
58 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 if the people of Arcis would not safeguard him they would. 
 To this those of Arcis replied they would die to a man in his 
 defence. Another letter of theirs to the ' Patriote Francois ' 
 shows how dear he was to them. It speaks of him as a 
 citizen without reproach, a victim of unjust persecution, and a 
 worthy patriot. This might have come from personal friends. 
 But his name was now known through France. The Marseilles 
 Jacobins summoned the members of the mother society to be 
 answerable for his life and make their bodies a rampart for 
 him. Nor were their turgid words without a basis of reason. 
 He became a candidate for the Legislative Assembly which 
 met in October, and an attempt was made to arrest him in 
 the electoral convention. It was repulsed, and Danton 
 vigorously protested that the electoral body ought to be as in- 
 violate as the Assembly itself. But reaction was still too strong, 
 and in spite of Desmoulins' strenuous advocacy he was not 
 elected. Nor when he stood for the procureurship of the 
 Commune was he more successful. In December, however, 
 he was elected joint deputy-procureur, and on this occasion 
 delivered a memorable speech. 1 
 
 It was not at one of the moments of his glory that a man 
 whose name must be for ever celebrated in the history of the 
 Revolution said he well knew that it was not far from the 
 Capitol to the Tarpeian Rock. And I, at almost the same 
 time, when excluded by a sort of plebiscite from this assembly, 
 to which a part of Paris had summoned me, answered those 
 who ascribed to the enfeebled energy of the citizens what was 
 merely an ephemeral aberration, that for an honest man it was 
 
 1 In the Patriote Fran$ais of December 6 the following announcement, 
 dated December 5, occurs : * Aujourd'hui les quarante-huit sections se 
 sont reunies pour proceder a Pelection du second substitut- adjoint du 
 procureur de la commune ; les suffrages des patriotes ont du se porter sur 
 MM. Danton et Collot d'Herbois.' Danton went to England in the 
 middle of August and returned September 9. He had just been elected 
 by the Section Theatre Fra^ais to the Electoral Assembly of Paris. The 
 question of his arrest was brought before the Constituent Assembly, but 
 its vote (Sept. 13) for a general amnesty made it unnecessary to come to 
 any decision. Rev. Fr. xxiv. 325, 326. 
 
1791 SPEECH AS DEPUTY-PROCUKEUR ' 59 
 
 not far from what seemed ostracism to the highest functions of 
 the State. Events have justified my belief. Public opinion, 
 and not the short-lived cry of a short-lived faction, public 
 opinion once formed formed for ever, which is based on 
 realities impossible to be long concealed, which has no amnesty 
 for traitors, which finally annuls the judgments of fools and the 
 decrees of venal judges, this public opinion recalls me from 
 retirement and the cultivation of my little farm. Humble 
 though it is, and notoriously bought with the money I received 
 for my suppressed avocatship, it has yet been magnified by 
 calumny into vast estates paid for by mysterious agents of 
 England and Prussia. My duty, gentlemen, is to take my seat 
 among you because the friends of liberty and the Constitution 
 so will it, a duty the more binding because at a moment when 
 the country is threatened on all sides it is impossible to refuse 
 a post which, like a sentinel's on outpost duty, may be one of 
 peril. In embarking on the career thus opened to me I should 
 not have addressed you now, after having disdained to say a 
 word during all the Revolution in answer to innumerable 
 calumnies, but should have let time and my conduct speak for 
 me, if the functions to which I am about to devote myself had 
 not wholly altered my position. As an individual I scorn the 
 shafts aimed at me as I do the whistling of an idle wind. 
 But I owe it to the people as their servant, if not to reply to 
 every petty and contemptible accusation, at least to combat 
 hand to hand anyone seeming to be sincere in his attacks. 
 
 Paris, like France, consists of three divisions. One hates 
 all liberty, all equality, all constitutions, and deserves all the 
 ills which would have crushed it as it would like to crush the 
 nation. With it I hold no parley. My one wish is to fight it 
 to the death. The second consists of the flower of the Revo- 
 lution's ardent friends, coadjutors, and strongest mainstays. It 
 has always wished me to be here. It needs no words of mine. 
 Its judgment has been passed on me. I will never betray its 
 trust. The third, as numerous as it is well meaning, is equally 
 desirous of liberty, but dreads its storms. It does not hate its 
 champions, whom it would second at a crisis, but it often 
 condemns their energy, which it deems habitually out of place or 
 dangerous. It is to citizens of this class, whom I respect even 
 when they lend too ready an ear to the perfidious machinations 
 of men hiding atrocious designs under the mask of moderation, 
 to these, I say, I feel it my duty as a magistrate of the people 
 frankly and solemnly to enunciate my political principles. 
 
60 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 Nature has endowed me with an athletic form and liberty's 
 rugged features. Happy in not being born of one of our old, 
 privileged, and consequently emasculated orders, I am a self- 
 made man with all my natural forces intact, though never for 
 a moment ceasing, either in private life or the profession I have 
 chosen, to show my ability to combine cool reason with a warm 
 heart and strength of character. If in the springtide of our 
 country's regeneration my love of my country has been an over- 
 boiling passion ; if to avoid seeming weak I have allowed my- 
 self to seem extravagant . . . . ; if, relying on my cause as the 
 national cause, I have elected to incur a second judicial proscrip- 
 tion based not on my imaginary participation in a petition of too 
 tragic celebrity, but on some cock and bull story of pistols taken 
 in my presence from a soldier's room on an ever memorable day 
 it is because I am accustomed to act in accordance with the 
 eternal laws of justice, it is because I am incapable of continuing 
 intimacies which are no longer honourable and associations with 
 men who dare to apostatise from the faith in the people which 
 they once proclaimed. 
 
 So much for my past life. Now, gentlemen, for the future. 
 I have been appointed to help to maintain the Constitution 
 and to execute the laws to which the nation has sworn. Well, 
 I will keep my oath. I 'will fulfil my duty. I will to the 
 utmost of my ability maintain the Constitution and only the 
 Constitution, since so I shall at the same time defend equally 
 liberty and the people. My predecessor said that in confer- 
 ring office upon him the King gave a new proof of his attach- 
 ment to the Constitution. With at least equal ardour the 
 people in choosing me wills that Constitution. Therefore it 
 has seconded the King's intentions. Are they not two eternal 
 truths which we have uttered, he and I ? All history proves 
 that never has a people under its own laws, under a constitu- 
 tional monarchy, been the first to break the covenant. 
 Nations never change or modify their Government unless 
 driven to do so by outrageous oppression. Constitutional 
 Monarchy may last for centuries longer than Despotic 
 Monarchy has lasted. They are philosophers only in name 
 who frame only systems for the destruction of empires. Vile 
 flatterers of kings who tyrannise over and starve the people are 
 surer causes of desire for another government than all the 
 philanthropists who publish schemes of absolute liberty. The 
 French nation with greater self-respect has not lost its greater 
 generosity. Breaking its fetters it has preserved the Mon- 
 
1791 EGOTISM IN THE SPEECH 6l 
 
 archy without fearing it, and without hating it has purged it of 
 its taints. Royalty should respect a people in whom long 
 oppression has not obliterated the inclination to be trustful, 
 often too trustful. Let it hand over of its own accord to the 
 law's vengeance all conspirators without exception, and all 
 those lackeys of conspiracy who get kings to give them instal- 
 ments of sham reactions to which they then want to rally, so to 
 speak, a party on trust. 
 
 Let royalty at length show itself the loyal friend of liberty, 
 its sovereign ; then it may be sure of lasting as long as the 
 nation itself ; then it will be seen that the citizens who are only 
 accused of exceeding the Constitution by the very men who 
 clearly will not carry it into effect, that these citizens, whatever 
 arbitrary theories they may have about liberty, do not seek to 
 break the social pact ; that they do not wish, for the sake of 
 something ideally better, to overthrow an order of things based 
 on equality, justice, and liberty. Yes, gentlemen, I must re- 
 peat it : whatever my own ideal was, when the Constitution 
 was being revised, as to things and persons, now the oath has 
 been taken I would cry aloud for the death of him who should 
 raise a sacrilegious hand against it, were he my brother, my 
 friend, or my own son. 
 
 Such are my sentiments. The general will of the French 
 people, as shown in its solemn adhesion to the Constitution, 
 shall always be my supreme law. I have consecrated my 
 whole life to the people, which will never again be attacked, be 
 betrayed, with impunity, and will soon sweep all tyrants off the 
 earth if they do not abandon the league they have formed 
 against it. I will die, if necessary, in defence of its cause. 
 My last prayers shall be in its behalf. It and it only deserves 
 them. Its intelligence, its courage, have raised it from the 
 depths of nothingness. The same intelligence and courage 
 shall make it immortal. 
 
 To an English ear some of the periods of this speech have 
 a too turgid and egotistic ring. It was evidently carefully 
 prepared, and Danton excelled in impromptu oratory rather than 
 in a set speech. But it was the fashion at the time to perorate, 
 the fashion to be somewhat prodigal of, often very sincere, 
 protestations of readiness to die for France, &c. To do Dan- 
 ton real justice all his speeches should be read, and it will be 
 found that such egotism as occasionally crops up in them is 
 
62 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 infinitesimal in quantity, as it is inoffensive in quality, in com- 
 parison with the egotism of men like Robespierre. 1 We must 
 also take into consideration his nationality, the habits of his 
 audience, and the moment at which he spoke. He had been 
 hunted by the law. Stories were being spread broadcast to 
 his discredit. He was entering a body where such stories 
 would find credence with not a few. That accounts for the 
 profusely personal and apologetic element in the speech, 
 which, however it may violate canons of oratorical good taste, 
 is certainly interesting. How many times, for instance, when 
 through the medium of foaming phrases we find him subse- 
 quently contriving to make an audience swallow some whole- 
 some sedative, do we recall ' if to avoid seeming weak I have 
 allowed myself to appear extravagant.' But it is as a profession 
 of faith, as a key to the whole of his political career, that it is 
 really important. It stamps him as an opportunist in the best 
 sense of the word, as the practical statesman never averse to 
 half a loaf if the alternative is no bread. He had desired a 
 republic ; he was content, sooner than enter on civil strife, 
 with a constitutional king. He will do his utmost for the 
 Constitution because it is the people's will. But all depends on 
 that, and over and over again as he protests his devotion to 
 the Constitution he reiterates the condition that it must not 
 override the will of the people, with whom and for whom it is 
 his sole ambition and immutable resolve to live and die. Let 
 the King be faithful to the Constitution and all will be well. 
 Let him betray it worst of all, let him call in the foreigner to 
 overthrow it and the people and their spokesman are ipso 
 facto absolved from their oath. 2 
 
 1 But it is surely going too far to say as M. Aulard does : ' D'ordinaire 
 Danton s'efface dans son discours.' 
 
 2 A writer in the Guardian, May 3, 1899, misapprehending the views 
 expressed in the preceding chapter, argued that the Cordeliers address 
 was not due to Danton, that Danton at the time of the affair of the Champ 
 de Mars was more Jacobin than Cordelier, that he had nothing to do with 
 the second petition, that the Republic ' was never an idea ' with him, and 
 that he carefully avoided giving the Republicans ' a false start ' on the 
 
1791 ALWAYS CORDELIER AND DEMOCRAT 63 
 
 Champ de Mars. The writer had neither noticed that Danton's ' oppor- 
 tunism ' was insisted on in the text, nor the opportunist ending of the 
 Cordeliers address. Danton was in July 1791 what he- always was, in 
 principle democrat, in practice opportunist, and the Cordeliers address, 
 so far from being formulated republicanism, was likewise democratic and 
 opportunist, praying the Assembly, as it did, either to declare a republic 
 (a word, at the time, of most indefinite meaning) or to wait till the depart- 
 ments and the primary assemblies had declared their will. M. Robinet 
 accurately describes this address as one ' ou eclate tout le ge'nie politique 
 de Danton,' and ' ou Ton ne peut guere meconnaitre la main ou 1'inspira- 
 tion du president perpetuel.' Danton was wedded to no republican 
 formula, but he was feeling his way to a republic, by which he meant 
 overnment by the people. The note of the address democratic rather 
 han republican is characteristic, and exactly expresses his attitude 
 aggressive against the Assembly's royalism, aggressive against Louis, but 
 unpledged as to what should replace him. 
 
 The argument of the writer in the Guardian is the argument developed 
 in 1893 by M. Aulard in a series of articles in La Revolution Franfaise. 
 But I cannot help suspecting that it would have been modified if that 
 admirable author had approached the subject somewhat less polemically. 
 In attempting to confute Comte (with whose theories I am not concerned) 
 and to prove that Danton was not the progenitor of the ' republican idea ' 
 he seems to have been led to ignore the essentially democratic nature of 
 Danton, to convict him of inconsistency where he was thoroughly con- 
 sistent, and to misjudge the occurrences of the Champ de Mars. 
 
 To make this clear Danton's connection with the Cordeliers must be 
 briefly recapitulated. 
 
 In July 1789 the Cordeliers district was already called ' The Republic 
 of the Cordeliers ' (p. 116).' Danton was its leading man. He inspired 
 it to march to Versailles. Bougeart says that he was its first president, 
 and it is probable that if not formally he was so informally. In any case 
 he was president in September. He conducted its war with the Commune 
 about the Mandat Imperatif; 'y joua,' says M. Aulard, * le premier r61e ' 
 (p. 140). In January 1790 it elected him to the Commune, and, though not 
 then president, he was, says M. Aulard, * plusquejamais meneur ' (p. 144). 
 He was one of the five commissioners appointed then to scrutinise arrests, 
 and, once more to quote M. Aulard, ' c'est au district des Cordeliers que 
 s'exer9a surtout son activite ' (p. 227). In April, as its president, he 
 advocated the suppression of the Chatelet. In May or June he was elected 
 by it Assistant-Notable to safeguard the rights of prisoners. Though a 
 member of the Commune he conducted the district's war against Bailly in 
 June and July. ' Le district des Cordeliers,' says M. Aulard, * c'est 
 Danton ' (p. 227). He inspired or signed its resolutions designed to 
 1 The references are to the pages of tome xxiv. of La Revolution Franfaise for 1893. 
 
64 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 thwart the conversion of the districts into Sections, and, failing in the 
 attempt, riposted by founding or concentrating the club of the Cordeliers, 
 who ' se battirent centre le trone et 1'autel, centre la politique constitu- 
 tionnelle ' (p. 229), and who invented the motto ' Liberty, Equality, 
 Fraternity.' In August the district elected him a Notable, and in 
 November the Commandant of its battalion of National Guards, he mean- 
 while having become a member of the Jacobins in September. 
 
 Here, then, we have an unbroken sequence of events which prove him 
 to have been Cordelier to the core in 1790, one with his district in its 
 policy, and the leader of its choice. Yet M. Aulard is of opinion that 
 three months later it was no longer in the Cordeliers club or district that he 
 exercised his authority, because he could only speak to Paris in the forum, 
 whereas at the Jacobins he spoke to France (p. 240). He doubts his 
 having anything to do with the Cordeliers demonstration against the fort 
 of Vincennes in February 1791, and concludes that ' ces bruyants fanfaron- 
 nades n'etaient plus de son gout ' (p. 240). He argues that Condorcet, 
 not he, was the author of the republican idea when he advocated a 
 National Convention and an Elective Council of Seven (p. 308), and that 
 Condorcet at that time kept severely aloof from Danton. But what said 
 Danton himself? * Ce n'est pas un regent qu'il faut, c'est un conseil 
 d'interdiction ; ce conseil ne peut etre pris dans le corps legislatif. II faut 
 que les departements s'assemblent, que chacun d'eux nomme un electeur 
 qui nomme ensuite les dix ou douze membres qui devront composer ce 
 conseil et qui seront changes, comme les membres de la legislature, tous 
 les deux ans. ' In saying so he was merely echoing the Cordeliers address ; 
 and the principle underlying his demand, that of the Cordeliers, and 
 Condorcet's, is identical, i.e. democratic. To represent him as anti- 
 Lafayette and not anti- Louis is to represent his minor as his major motive. 
 His private quarrel with Lafayette no doubt embittered his language, but 
 he assailed him as the outwork and buttress of royalism. When he cried 
 on June 2 1 'Vos chefs sont des traitres,' M. Aulard thinks that he was 
 speaking of Lafayette. But he is said to have mentioned the King 
 directly, and in any case it seems incredible that he did not include in 
 ' Vos chefs ' the man he was denouncing at the Jacobins as a criminal or 
 imbecile. His attitude after the flight to Varennes was the natural and 
 consistent development of his attitude towards the attempted flight to 
 St. Cloud which he personally interfered to stop. On that occasion also 
 he collided with Lafayette, and when taxed with calumniating him would 
 not disown the spirit though he disclaimed responsibility for the letter of 
 the incriminated placard, but his main attack was directed against the 
 king on the board, not the knight. In short, he was Cordelier in April. 
 There had been no sudden break in the continuity of his policy or friend- 
 ships. 
 
 Nor was there any afterwards. M. Aulard (p. 240) says that 'sans 
 
1791 ALWAYS CORDELIER AND DEMOCRAT 65 
 
 parler de rtpublique il essaie d'entrainer les Jacobins a une opposition plus 
 vive centre la cour, de leur demontrer que de nouvelles journe'es populaircs 
 sont indispensables pour dejouer les intrigues de la centre-revolution, ' and 
 notes his words at the Jacobins, 'qu'il voit avec douleur qu'il faut un 
 supplement de revolution' (p. 242) ; and his other words after Mirabeau's 
 death, 'cette perte rendait encore plus pressant le besoin d'une aut re- 
 legislature ' (p. 242). After the flight to Varennes, M. Aulard shows how 
 in Paris and the large towns ' il se forma un parti re"publicain ' (p. 306), 
 and how from June 21 to September 14 the government was practically :i 
 republic. Is it conceivable that Danton was not one of that party ? 
 Surely M. Aulard must have forgotten his rallying-word in March 1794 to 
 < the men who first spoke the word Republic and confronted Lafayette. ' 
 Evidently Danton was unconscious of any such divorce from his past and 
 his party as M. Aulard suggests. And in August 1792, mentioning the 
 Theatre Francois as, ' sous le nom de district des Cordeliers,' contributing 
 so much to the revolution of 1789, and 'sous le nom de section de 
 Marseille ' contributing so much to the revolution of 1792, he said : ' Vous 
 me trouverez constamment et invariablement le meme president de cette 
 section' (p. 482).* 
 
 No theory can weaken the force of such language, which M. Aulard 
 himself emphasises, when he describes him as being at the time ' un 
 democrate exalte au milieu de moderes ' (p. 484). That, in fact, is the 
 conclusion of the whole matter. He was tentatively Republican in 1791. 
 He was Democrat always, Cordelier always, from 1789 to 1794. 
 
 It remains to be seen what was his share in the two petitions. 
 
 The chief difficulty, however the petitions are regarded, is to reconcile 
 what Danton said soon afterwards with what he said at his trial. At the 
 end of the year 1791 he spoke of his ' chimerical participation in a petition 
 of too tragic celebrity.' At his trial he said : 'I offer to prove that the 
 petition in which I concurred had only pure intentions, that, as being, one 
 of its authors, I was menaced with assassination like the others, and that 
 murderers were sent to my house to sacrifice me to the rage of the 
 counter-revolutionaries.' On the first occasion he seems to disown, on 
 the other to boast of his share in a petition, and the words ',tpo tragic 
 pelebrity ' and ' assassination ' seem to point to its being the same 
 petition, viz. the second, to which he refers. I have come to the conclusion, 
 however, that this may not be the case, and that the key to his speech at 
 his trial is to be found in the words 'pure intentions.' . Robespierre and 
 St. Just were charging him with having been ultra-revolutionary on July 15, 
 1791, in order to egg on the people to act, and furnish a pretext for a 
 massacre. Now Robespierre had opposed the first petition, according 
 
 1 M. Aulard (Etudes et Lefons sur la Revolution Franfaise, p. 122) exemp'.ifies ' la 
 haine immortelle contre la royaute ' of the department of the Aube. 
 
66 LIFE OF DANTON 1791 
 
 to his own account, 1 and Danton says in effect, ' In supporting the first 
 petition I had no such treacherous intention.' But Robespierre and 
 St. Just were also accusing him of Orleanism. * No,' says Danton, ' I had 
 nothing to do with the treacherous intention of Laclos.' M. Aulard 
 argues that Laclos had nothing to do with the petition because he was not 
 formally appointed to draw it up. This is not the only occasion in which 
 M. Aulard seems to carry an honest habit of accepting nothing for which 
 there is not evidence in black and white too far. Surely the argument is 
 worth little. Laclos was undoubtedly the proposer of the petition. The 
 committee to draw it up was appointed hastily during a tumultuous 
 inroad of a mob at the Jacobins. There is no reason to doubt Brissot's 
 testimony as to the share Laclos took in it. As to what took place on 
 the Champ de Mars, there have and always will be quot homines tot 
 sententia. Whether Danton read the second or the first petition, 
 whether he signed the second or not, whether he did or did not harangue 
 the crowd, and was or was not present at the massacre, can never probably 
 be made absolutely certain. But all his previous and his subsequent 
 history warrants our thinking that he was one of those behind who 
 cried 'Forward' rather than one of those before who cried 'Back.' 
 One thing is certain. The Cordeliers were for the second petition, 
 the Jacobins, or part of them, were not. Now, Danton, as we have 
 seen, was trying to win over the Jacobins, and having run counter to 
 some of them in signing the first petition, he did not wish still further to 
 provoke them. Therefore very naturally he may not have signed the 
 second petition. But his friend Robert drew it up, and even though i 
 may have been written on the Champ de Mars, it is simply incredible that 
 it could have been improvised there on the Sunday when its subject had 
 been in everyone's thoughts since the miscarriage of the first petition the 
 day before. M. Robinet says positively that it was drawn up ' chez 
 DantonS It is certainly highly probable, nor was there anything uncon- 
 stitutional or illegal in it (p. 321 ) to make Danton shrink. When M. Aulard 
 lays so much stress on his not having signed it, he forgets that on other occa- 
 sions he pursued precisely the same tactics. M. Aulard himself bears 
 witness to this. With respect to the emeute of June 20, 1792, he says 
 that Danton ' la laissa faire, il se tint & 1'ecart ' (p. 343). With respect to 
 the ' terrible blow ' aimed at the throne by the Theatre Frangais (i.e. the 
 Cordeliers) in demanding the suppression of the Etat Major, he says : 
 ' On remarquera que Danton n'a pas signe cet arrete ' (p. 390). ' II est 
 cependant probable qu'il ne fut pas etranger a ce nouvel acte de guerre 
 des ex-Cordeliers contre la cour, d'autant plus que cet acte n'est que la 
 consequence naturelle ' of another Cordelier ' arrete ' which he calls the 
 charter of universal suffrage. And we cannot but recall Danton's attitude 
 with regard to the placard denouncing Lafayette, and subsequently with 
 ' a laquelle je m'opposai.' Prices, p. 471. But cf. Rev. Fr. xxiv. p. 316. 
 
1791 ALWAYS CORDELIER AND DEMOCRAT 67 
 
 regard to the popular manifestations against the Girondins at the end of 
 May 1793. He was in short a democrat leading democrats, and 'toujours 
 Cordelier,' in July 1791. 
 
 But how, then, are to be explained his words, ' J'ai pre'fe're' les dangers 
 d'une seconde proscription judiciaire, fonde'e non pas me'me sur ma 
 participation chime'rique a une petition trop tragiquement ce"lebre ' ? And 
 of which petition was he speaking ? Of the second. In talking of ' too 
 tragically celebrated ' he used a neutral phrase to which no one could take 
 exception. But mark the ' meme. ' Surely that implies that there would 
 have been plausible ground for prosecution if he had been prosecuted for 
 participation, and though he went on to say ' chimerique ' I believe he meant 
 only that though plausible it could have rested only on guesswork. He 
 knew, as his hearers did not, what had gone on between himself and Robert, 
 If he had meant to deny indignantly having had anything to do with the 
 petition he would have used very different language, whereas he was 
 gliding over thin ice, and suggesting that bygones should be bygones 
 on both sides. He had just alluded to the Revolution's ardent friends 
 who wished him to be in office. By them he meant the Cordeliers. He 
 had also alluded to men equally desirous of liberty but afraid of its storms. 
 By them he meant the trimming Jacobins. Then he alluded to his own 
 extravagance, to his over-boiling passion, to his having elected to incur a 
 second judicial proscription, in addition, i.e. to that incurred in behalf of 
 Marat. And in effect he says this : ' We have now agreed to a compromise. 
 I accept and abide by it.' That is entirely consonant with his not having 
 signed the second petition, though he inspired it, and his being then as 
 always in principle Democrat, in practice Opportunist, and by tempera- 
 ment and irrevocable ties toujours Cordelier. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 -LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 1792 
 
 THE ALLIES SANGUINARY THREATS OF THE 'EMIGRES 1 ALARMS IN 
 PARIS KING'S FOLLY DANTON WISHES TO BANISH THE QUEEN 
 HIS ATTITUDE TOWARDS WAR ENGLISH INFLUENCES DEFENDS 
 ROBESPIERRE VIEWS AS TO THE RICH, THE QUEEN, LAFAYETTE 
 > SORRY STATE OF FRANCE LAFAYETTE COMES TO PARIS SERIES 
 OF EVENTS LEADING TO AUGUST IO DANTON ORGANISER IN 
 CHIEF. 
 
 EVENTS moved so swiftly in the Revolution that its months 
 sesm in measure more than ordinary years. The compromise 
 which appeared a possibility in the winter of 1791 was, as both 
 sides saw, no longer a possibility in the spring of 1792. The 
 intervening months had been employed in mustering forces for 
 war instead of consolidating peace, and the pitched battle at 
 the Tuileries only ended what the skirmish in the Champ de 
 Mars began. The glory and gloom of a year never to be 
 effaced from French annals have alike been ascribed to Dan- 
 ton. But even if he had been the author of its shame as well 
 as its splendour France would have forgotten the September 
 massacres and remembered only by whom that year she was 
 ' saved from Brunswick.' It opened ominously. Throughout 
 France famine reigned arid panic, and the passions which 
 panic and famine always rouse. Foes without were combining 
 with foes within. Russia, really anxious for a war between the 
 Empire and France, that she might be free to work her will on 
 Poland, was profuse in expressions of sympathy with the emi- 
 grants, while inciting Austria and Prussia to help them with 
 the sword. Austria and Prussia, really hating each other with 
 
1792 WHO INVOKED TERROR FIRST? 69 
 
 a hatred destined to paralyse the invasion, had apparently at 
 last come to terms. The threats uttered at Pilnitz had excited 
 French fears and offended French pride. 1 The Constituent 
 Assembly had been pacifically disposed. It had proclaimed 
 its aversion to offensive war. 2 It had limited the army to 
 1 50,000 men, 3 afterwards supplemented by 97,000 volunteers. 
 But the Legislative Assembly, though at first it avowed the 
 same sentiments, 4 responded to menace by expediting the 
 mobilisation of the volunteers, 5 by severer penalties against 
 nonjuring priests, 6 by pronouncing sentence of death on emi- 
 grants continuing in arms, and by threatening the Emperor 
 with war if he gave them- aid. Then came the league between 
 Prussia and Austria, the death of Marie Antoinette's wisest 
 councillor, Leopold (March i), followed in April by France's 
 declaration of war. 
 
 How the war would be waged if the emigrants should guide 
 it there was no doubt. History, which never fails to shudder 
 at Marat's hyperboles, passes, as a rule, very lightly over the 
 equally atrocious language of men whose programme was every 
 whit as horrible as that of those who organised the September 
 massacres, and subsequently established government by guillo- 
 tine. * Terror ' was their avowed policy before it was the policy 
 of Robespierre, just as the filth of the 'Actes des Apotres' 
 preceded, while escaping the odium of, the filth of 4 Pere 
 Duchesne,' and as noyades of inconvenient negroes in pre- 
 Revolutionary times failed to entail on Nantese Royalists the 
 infamy of Carrier, who merely copied their methods and used 
 their means. 7 The very term ' terror ' may be said to come 
 from the mint of the emigrants, and their friends. l fe crois 
 necessaire de frapper les Pan's/ens par la terreur? 8 * La peur 
 poussera cette Assemblee dans le sens ou elle va jusgu'a ce qrfune 
 autre terreur la pousse dans le sens contraire. Soyez stirs que 
 
 1 S. ii. 261-64; Bourgoing's Hist. DipL deP Europe, Pt. I. 387. 
 
 2 M. ix. 320. * M. v. 416. * S. ii. 311. 
 5 M. 3^605. * M. x. 191. 
 7 Dubost's Une Page d'Histoire, p. 95. * S. ii. r 27. 
 
70 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 ces gens-ci ne sont plus susceptibles d'autre sentiment que celui de 
 la peur? Invasion might involve an explosion, but ' la terreur y 
 succederait surement bientot? 1 Such words recall many a page 
 execrating the more famous * en faisant peur? Yet they are 
 Montmorin's, not Danton's, and the date of them is not August, 
 but July. Mallet du Pan wrote that at Coblentz the sole talk 
 was of hanging and extermination. 2 He himself was for * no 
 pernicious pity.' Mercy would be a crime against society. 3 
 The march on Paris was to be made ' enjetantpartout la terrenr 
 et le desordre? 4 Mercy, Marie Antoinette's friend is never tired 
 of the word. * On ne peut ecraser la Revolution que par la 
 terreur J he wrote. 5 ' Ce ne seront ni une ni plusieurs batailles 
 gagnees qui reduiront une nation laquelle ne peut etre domptee 
 qu'autant que Von exterminera une grande portion de la partie 
 active et la presque totalite de la par tie dirigeante? And he went 
 on to say that it was necessary to destroy this superb capital, 
 i.e. Paris. Even the Queen did not go so far as this when she 
 suggested to him the necessity of ' la crainte d'une punition 
 prochaine?^ The philosophy of such a programme was 
 enunciated a couple of years later by Joseph de Maistre. The 
 spirit of man, he thought, when it had gone astray, as in the 
 Revolution, needed a blood-bath to regenerate it, ' ne peut etre 
 retrempee que dans le sang} 7 ' On dirait que le sang est Pengrais 
 de cetteplante qu'on appelle le genie.' 1 Others before De Maistre 
 preached from the same text. 'This den of assassins must 
 perish,' said a Minister of Sweden ; ' while France has a Paris 
 it will have no king.' 8 
 
 But the emigrants needed no stimulus. Had they been 
 able they would have perpetrated all the Revolution's horrors 
 unredeemed by one of the lasting benefits which it conferred on 
 France. Their allies already loathed them. Brunswick cursed 
 as he signed the abominable manifesto which bears his name 
 
 1 S. ii. 491. * S. ii. 527. * S. iii. 3. 
 
 S. iii. 333. 5 S. iii. 333. S. ii. 491. 
 
 ' S. iii. 479. 8 S. ii. 527. 
 
1792 PANIC IN PARIS 71 
 
 * I would give my life not to have signed it,' he said. 1 Fersen 
 thus describes their prelusive exploits in friendly territory : ' Us 
 ontfaitdes horreurs, pille et ravage tout dans le pays de Trbues? * 
 The King of Prussia's secretary said of them : * Young and old 
 they seem to be the scum of the nation. Their words are 
 atrocious. If one were to leave their fellow citizens to their 
 vengeance France would soon be one monstrous cemetery.' 3 
 
 In Paris the people could not know all these dissensions 
 which foredoomed the invasion to failure, nor how much those 
 emigrants were distrusted by the King, who yet shielded them, 
 and how much hated by the Queen. 4 To them their enemies 
 seemed at last to show a united front. They could not guess 
 the subtleties with which Louis, in playing his double game* 
 satisfied his conscience. 5 Nor if they had known it would they 
 have appreciated the difference between the comparatively mild 
 coercion invoked by Mallet du Pan 6 and the much more drastic 
 suggestions of the King's much more intimate representative 
 Breteuil. 7 Enough for them what they could see with their 
 own eyes famine ; plots of insurrection propagated by priests ; 
 emigrants boasting of the agencies they had everywhere, and 
 of the gibbets they would soon rear in Paris ; foreigners enter- 
 ing France ; a constitutional guard illegally tripled in number 
 by the King, chosen almost exclusively from Royalists, and 
 openly exulting at the news of the disasters to French arms. 
 If such perils were to be weathered it could only be by promptly 
 jettisoning traitors. The Constitutional Guard was suppressed. 
 A volunteer camp was ordered to be formed outside the walls 
 of Paris, and the troops of the line in Paris were ordered to the 
 frontier. 
 
 Against the formation of the camp 8,000 National Guards 
 petitioned, the petitioners, ' all under arms,' 8 defiling through an 
 empty Assembly. For them it was to be a day of fatal memory 
 
 S. ii. 510. 2 S. Hi. 3. 3 S. iii. 3. 
 
 M.-T. ii. 163, 164. 5 Morse Stephens, Fr. Rev. ii. 74 
 
 S. ii. 508. 509 ; Bourgoing's Hist. Diplomatique, Pt. ii. 144. 
 S. ii. 509. Cf. Bourgoing, Hist. Dipl. Pt. i. 262, 427. 
 Carlyle's^r. Rev. ed. 1871, ii. 215. 
 
72 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 but it encouraged the King. He vetoed the camp. He vetoed 
 the decrees against recalcitrant priests. He had vetoed the 
 measure against the emigrants. Roland lectured him and he 
 dismissed Roland. He had long been credited with passive 
 connivance at the Queen's active complicity in the conspiracy 
 against the nation. Even now she was felt to be the arch-con- 
 spirator. 
 
 ' Madame Veto avait promis 
 De faire egorger tout Paris.' ' 
 
 So the people sang in the streets, and in June, little more than 
 half a year after the speech recorded in the previous chapter, 
 we find Danton demanding her expulsion from France. 
 
 Could Danton's demand have been executed and she had 
 been sent to Vienna, * avec tous les egards, les managements et la 
 surete qui lui sont dfisj as he was careful to stipulate, France 
 might have been spared some horrors. 2 But she would 
 neither save herself nor let others save her. She was deter- 
 mined to fight, and she hoped, not without reason, to win. It 
 is even possible that if she had had only the Girondin leaders 
 and not Danton to deal with she might have won. Before this 
 we hear comparatively little of him in 1792, engrossed, as he 
 was, by his official duties. But he had spoken at the Jacobins 
 on the all-important question of the war, and the manner as 
 well as the matter of the speech was characteristic. Brissot is 
 complimented in it as ' this vigorous athlete of liberty.' His 
 jacobin audience he captures with, 'The destroying angel of 
 liberty will make the satellites of despotism fall, and the 
 clarions of war will sound. But,' and then after such rotund 
 tribute to those with whom the war was most popular, he pro- 
 ceeded to instil the necessity of caution, caution as to the time, 
 caution as to the men into whose hands the army was to be 
 entrusted. And so he introduces his listeners gradually to what 
 practically were arguments against war. Its champions, he 
 says, aimed at giving France an English Constitution, in the 
 
 1 M. -T. ii. 93. 2 Homme d Etat, p 302. 
 
1792 DANTON AGAINST WAR 73 
 
 hope ere long of exchanging it for that of Constantinople. ' I 
 am for war it is indispensable we are bound to have it, but 
 we ought to exhaust all means of staving it off.' 
 
 The speech reveals Danton's proficiency in the orator's art 
 of keeping in touch with his audience, and leading it while 
 seeming to be led. Incidentally he alludes to his official 
 position in words showing that he clung still to the hope of 
 avoiding civil war. * However rny own opinion may have been 
 opposed to those who have hampered the Constitution, I now 
 declare that I will only defend the people, will only terrify its 
 enemies, with the club of reason and the sword of the law.' 
 It was with other clubs and swords that the victory of August 
 was to be won ; but much was to happen before August 
 which Danton could not foresee. His attitude towards the war 
 was dictated by doubts as to the motives of those who would 
 direct it, not by any fear of the Austrians. He might have 
 accepted it with misgivings, but he did not welcome it. Ultra- 
 Royalists welcomed it as a desperate gambler welcomes double 
 or quits, willing to stake all on the chance of regaining all. ! 
 The Girondins dreamt of it as a crusade abroad which would 
 unite all patriots at home, and out of which they themselves 
 should emerge covered with glory, ' masters of France, libera- 
 tors of Europe, benefactors of humanity.' 2 Danton dreaded it 
 as likely to render men like Lafayette more dangerous, and 
 because the ' when ' it should be made was not yet come. 
 ' Mais, messieurs, QUAND devons-nous avoir la guerre ? ' 
 
 In both calculations he was correct. What he did not 
 foresee was that the burden of the war was to rest on his 
 own shoulders. But a shrewd observer had already said of 
 him ' II par ait que Danton jouerait desormais un grand role* 
 That role was forced on him. Little by little he had come to 
 be looked on as the people's tribune, from whom more 
 practical counsel was to be expected at a pinch than from the 
 pontifical generalities and petty animosities of Robespierre, 
 whose opposition to the war was as much opposition to 
 1 M.-T. i. 32. 2 S. ii. 314. 3 S. ii. 321.. 
 
74 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 Brissot as anything else. He had been, as we shall see here- 
 after, profoundly influenced by what he had observed in England 
 in 1791. '// viendraj he said in the spring of 1792, 
 '# temps ou les bdionnettes rteblouiront point les yeux des 
 titoyens, car en parcourant FAngleterre on ne voit des baton- 
 nettes que dans les lieux qrfhabite le pouvoir executif de ce pays' 
 And though he had obtained only a one-sided view of English 
 politics he spoke after his visit with more weight than before. 
 Probably his communications with the English Opposition led 
 him, in common with Dumouriez, to hope to isolate Austria 
 by neutralising England and Prussia, for this would be in 
 keeping with his subsequent policy when in power. Whether 
 he was unmasking the danger of war or the project of a military 
 guard for the Assembly, or pronouncing against the King 
 influencing the formation of the High Court, or against the 
 acceptation of royal bounty for the soldiers of Chateau Vieux 
 though from the stage-foolery on the Champ de Mars in 
 their honour he kept aloof * he was listened to as a man not 
 speaking often but with something practical always to say. 
 f Danton ! Danton ! ' cried the Jacobins one day when 
 Vergniaud, having to leave the chair, requested a substitute. 
 And shortly afterwards we find him defending Robespierre with 
 the air of the stronger man defending the weaker, a circumstance 
 which rankled, perhaps, in Robespierre's heart and was repaid 
 with murderous patronage a year later on the very same spot. 2 
 It was, therefore, with consciousness of power that to meet 
 a triple danger he now made three demands. To meet the 
 invasion, and at the same time nip any secret hopes which the 
 rich built on it, he proposed that these rich should bear the 
 burden of taxation. To checkmate Court treachery he de- 
 manded the Queen's banishment. To overawe Lafayette, whose 
 famous letter of June 16 was a declaration of war against the 
 
 1 M. Stephens, Fr. Rev. ii. 62. 
 
 2 On January I, he had been made Vice-President at the Jacobins, and 
 it was rumoured that the King was thinking of making him Minister of 
 the Interior in a Jacobin Ministry. Rev. Fr. xxiv. 342. 
 
1792 EVENTS LEADING TO AUGUST IO 75 
 
 Jacobins, he proposed that he should be summoned to the bar 
 of the Assembly. He would have nothing to do with the 
 movement of June 20. l Aimless insults to individuals were 
 not to his taste, and matters were not ripe for the larger issues 
 of August 10. But every day it became clearer that if Louis 
 remained on the throne France was lost. On June 13 
 Dumouriez had reported to the Assembly that the army was ill- 
 armed, ill-clothed, ill-officered, and wretchedly supplied with 
 horses and ammunition ; 2 and in July that it was without 
 instructions and without food. 3 Luckner had only 70,000 men 
 to oppose to 200,000 of the enemy, and declared he would not 
 answer for the Austrians not being in Paris in six weeks. 4 
 There were Royalist gatherings in the Cevennes. 5 The peasan- 
 try of the North and West were rising at the summons of the 
 priests. Rumours of a republican secession of the South had 
 been spread since April. Amid such national alarms Lafayette 
 came on June 28 to demand the punishment of the sectional 
 chiefs, an act which fully justified Danton's prevision and pro- 
 bably finally determined him to appeal to force. The Queen, 
 had he but known it, was his best ally. * Rather would I 
 perish,' she said, ' than be saved by Lafayette,' 6 and by her 
 besotted ingratitude to her last champion she made any coup 
 d'etat he might have meditated impossible, and sealed her own 
 fate and that of the King. On July 3 Vergniaud in his greatest 
 speech denounced the King's conspiracy with the foreigner. 7 
 On the 7th Petion, Mayor of Paris, was, with the King's appro- 
 val, suspended for his conduct on June 2o. 8 On the 8th came 
 news of the impending Royalist occupation of Jales and the 
 Chateau de Bannes. 9 On the 9th Brissot declaimed against 
 the conspiracy to which the King, he said, was a party, and to 
 which the weakness of the army was due. 10 On the nth the 
 
 1 M. Stephens, Fr. Rev. ii. 83. 2 M. xii. 669. 
 
 8 M.-T. ii. 82. 4 M.-T. ii. 81. 5 S. ii. 488. 
 
 6 Morse Stephens, Fr. Rev. ii. 99. 7 M.-T. ii. 21. 8 M. xiii. 74. 
 
 9 M.-T. ii. 51 says they were actually occupied then, but cf. M. xiii. 
 78, 123. > M. xiii. 83, 
 
76 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 Assembly, at the instigation of Danton's friend Herault de 
 Sechelles, declared the country in danger. This was no merely 
 scenic appeal to sentiment. It meant that all National Guards 
 were requisitioned, that in all parts of the country the con- 
 stituted authorities must sit permanently, that everyone must 
 send in a list of arms and ammunition in his possession, that 
 everyone must wear the national cockade, and that display of 
 any anti-national emblem was punishable with death. 1 On the 
 1 3th Petion's suspension was annulled by the Assembly, and 
 next day he was the hero of the Festival of the Federation. 
 On the 1 4th Danton urged the Federes in Paris to swear not to 
 leave the capital till liberty was established and the will of the 
 departments about the Executive Power declared. 2 On the lyth 
 the Federes responded by coming to the bar of the Assembly 
 and demanding the suspension of Lafayette and the King. 3 On 
 the 25th Thuriot, a Dantonist, carried in the Assembly a motion 
 allowing the Sections to sit permanently and giving to each 
 individual Section absolute freedom of petition. 4 That same 
 day Brunswick signed the sinister proclamation which bears his 
 name. On the 26th the first meeting of the Secret Directory 
 of Insurrection was held ; 5 and when the Marseilles battalion 
 arrived in Paris on the 3oth only the details of the coming 
 struggle remained to be arranged. 
 
 It is generally admitted that Danton was organiser in chief 
 of August 10. He said so himself. His contemporaries, with 
 the exception of Robespierre, said so too. ' Danton arranged 
 le 10 aout et le chateau fut foudroyej testifies Garat. '// 
 avait fait le 10 aout ; il n'avait pas voulu nominalement le 
 pouvoirj says Billaud-Varenne. 6 ' Dans finterieur de Paris 
 Danton dirigeait les mouvements ; <? etait a lui que se rattachaient 
 les principaux chefs des insurges ; c'etaient ses ordres quails 
 executaient? Such is the emphatic language of the c deux amis 
 
 1 M.-T. ii. 29. 2 Prods , p. 229. 3 Ibid. p. 229. 
 
 4 M. xiiu 248; Morse Stephens, Fr. Rev. ii. 117; M.-T. ii. 197. 
 
 5 G. de Cassagnac's Hist, des Girondins, b. x. sec. 4. 
 ' Proch, p. 226. 
 
1792 DANTON'S ACTIVITY 77 
 
 de la Liberte? The Cordeliers battalion, in which he was an 
 officer and which contained his personal friends, was one of 
 the four which did the fighting on the loth. 1 On the nth he 
 alone of the leaders on the loth was made a Minister. The 
 Marseillais were the guests of his Section. The Communal 
 decree of August 6, altering the guards at the Tuileries, and 
 other points of importance, so as to prevent their being 
 exclusively royalist, 2 the decree ordering ammunition to be given 
 to the Marseillais and refused to Mandat, 3 the decree suppres- 
 sing corps cTelite in the National Guard, 4 and such proposals 
 as those for the reorganisation of the Staff, for punishing 
 officers giving orders other than those emanating from the 
 civic authorities, for distributing the artillery among the forty- 
 eight Sections, must all have been within his cognisance as 
 deputy-procureur. The Central Office of the forty-eight 
 Sections constituted in July, without which there would have 
 been no loth of August, was directly under the supervision and 
 ; control of the procureur of the Commune. 4 The procureur 
 was Manuel. His deputy was Danton. But which of the two 
 was leader and which follower there can be no doubt, any 
 more than that it was Danton who spurred on the vacillating 
 Petion. And on the eve of the combat it was to. Danton, as 
 we shall see, that people kept coming for orders. He was not, 
 it is true, one of the five original chiefs of the Secret Directory 
 of Insurrection. His official position made it more politic for 
 him to act through subordinates. But he certainly attended 
 one, and that the most important, of the three meetings which 
 they held, viz. on August 10 between twelve and one o'clock A.M., 
 and probably was at the other two. Camille Desmoulins was 
 present at the second. 6 Once, in short, his resolution to appeal 
 to force was taken he threw his whole energy into making 
 success certain. To get rid of the Court was to him only a 
 means to an end, viz. to get rid of the invaders, but that being 
 
 1 Prods> p. 227. 2 M.-T. ii. 193. * Procts, p. 229. 
 
 * M.-T. ii. 194. 5 M.-T. ii. 135. 
 
 6 G. de Cassagnac, Hist, des Girondins, b. x. sec. 4. 
 
78 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 the first thing to do he did it with all his might. The 
 Girondins, on the other hand, began to waver when brought 
 face to face with the consequence of their own acts. They 
 had done their utmost to infuse vigour into the military 
 operations, and there Danton was with them. But they had 
 also done everything to humiliate Louis, and yet Vergniaud on 
 the 29th suggested to him to place himself in their hands. 
 Could Louis have stooped so low, their feeble hands could 
 never had laid the storm they had themselves raised. 
 
 Nor would Danton consent to any more compromise. To 
 him the Baiser de Lamourette of July 7 had seemed the Baiser 
 de Judas. 1 On the 3oth a momentous resolution was adopted 
 by the Cordeliers, and signed by him as President, by which 
 * passive ' that is, poor ' citizens ' were summoned to enrol 
 themselves in the National Guard, of which only * active ' 
 citizens had previously been members. On August i Carnot 
 carried a decree to the same effect in the Assembly. 2 The 
 purport of it was to add so many pikes to the strength of the 
 populace. For though the most populous of the Sections were 
 for the insurrection the wealthier ones were not, and it was 
 impossible to depend on all the battalions of the National 
 Guard. In all, in short, of the decisive steps taken before the 
 loth Danton's hand is to be traced, and in the most decisive 
 of them it is clearly visible. 'Cloudy Atlas of the whole,' 
 Mr. Carlyle calls him, a description only partly accurate, 
 though wholly picturesque. Atlas of the whole he was, and 
 Atlas of the Republic he remained during the first year of the 
 Convention, a year a history of which might well be headed 
 'The Tribunate of Danton.' 
 
 1 M.-T. ii. 36. 2 Carnot the younger, for his elder brother. 
 
1792 79 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 1792 continued 
 
 KING'S FATUITY PREPARATIONS FOR THE IOTH PETION EVENTS 
 OF THE 9TH AND IOTH -DANTON'S MOVEMENTS DESPONDENCY 
 OF THE INSURGENTS LUCILE'S JOURNAL THE COUR DU COM- 
 MERCE THE TUILERIES MANDAT THE KING'S CHARACTER- 
 AFTER THE COMBAT. 
 
 DURING the first days of August the King seemed bent on 
 playing into the Revolutionists' hands. Perhaps nothing could 
 have convinced them that he did not sympathise with 
 Brunswick's proclamation, which was, in fact, only a cruder 
 and more violent version of his instructions to Mallet du Pan. 
 But after five days' silence he on August 3 sent a message 
 to the Assembly which it could not help regarding as the hypo- 
 critical plea of an accessory to a crime. He threw doubts on 
 the authenticity of the proclamation, alluding to it in self- 
 excusing terms instead of with the passionate abhorrence 
 which it had roused in all patriotic hearts. 1 Such abhorrence 
 his conscience would not permit him to feign. Not a cheer 
 greeted his message, 2 and in a fiery outburst the Girondin 
 Isnard made a fierce attack on his conduct and motives, which 
 was followed by a petition from the Sections for his dethrone- 
 ment. Danton was not one of those who signed it, but his 
 friends Legendre and Fabre d'Eglantine were, and we catch 
 his accents in ' We could have been content with the King's 
 suspension ; but the Constitution the Constitution, which is 
 is ever on his lips forbids it. Therefore we invoke the 
 
 1 M. xiii. 320. 2 M.-T. ii. 167. 
 
80 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 Constitution ourselves and demand that he be deposed/ 1 
 In the still Monarchical Assembly, which five days later was to 
 refuse to condemn Lafayette, indignation at the King's speech 
 had been chilled by the Sections' petition, and its passive 
 attitude increased the Revolutionists' anger and alarm. 2 On 
 the 4th the second meeting of the Secret Directory was held at 
 the Cadran Bleu, on the Boulevard du Temple, whence it was 
 adjourned to Anthoine's longing at Duplay's house in the Rue 
 St. Honore, where also Robespierre lodged. 3 On this day 
 the general plan of insurrection was set forth by Camille 
 Desmoulins, but it did not take place that night because 
 Santerre was not ready, and because some preferred to wait 
 for the Assembly's decision as to the suspension of the King. 4 
 
 The Mauconseil Section declared the throne vacant and 
 invited the other Sections to join it in announcing its declara- 
 tion to the Assembly on August 5. Fourteen assented. 
 Sixteen opposed. Ten gave no sign. 5 The decision of the 
 other eight is not known. But the populous Sections were 
 with Mauconseil, and though the Assembly pronounced its 
 declaration illegal and the Departmental Directory ordered its 
 illegality to be proclaimed with the sound of the trumpet, the 
 Commune set at naught the order, and preparations for the 
 impending conflict went on openly and apace. 6 
 
 In such crises the timider men who in times of order hold 
 sway efface themselves. Meetings are sparsely attended. 
 The bolder spirits vote and act. If their acts are afterwards 
 condemned those who stood aloof, though for that very reason 
 most blameworthy, are acquitted of all blame. Such was the 
 case now. Petion's advice, 7 or possibly the jealousy of one 
 Section, 8 made the insurrection miss fire on August 5, and had 
 the propertied classes shown a united front Danton's task 
 
 1 M.-T. ii. 172. 2 Ibid. ii. 173. 
 
 * G. de Cassagnac, Hist des Girondins, b. x. sec. iv. 
 
 * Bat, du 10 Aoftt, p. 246, 
 
 5 M.-T. ii. 443. 6 M.-T. r. 180. 
 
 7 M.-T. ii. 224. 8 M.-T. ii. 182. 
 
1792 PREPARATIONS FOR INSURRECTION 8 1 
 
 would have been rendered far more difficult than it was. But 
 they stayed at home, and the Sections followed the lead of 
 the men who knew their own minds and were not afraid to 
 act. 
 
 The Secret Directory of Insurrection consisted of five men 
 chosen by the Fe'de're's in Paris. These had added to them- 
 selves ten of the managers of the full-dress rehearsal of 
 June 20. 1 This body, with Potion's connivance, arranged that 
 the representatives of the twenty-eight most revolutionary Sec- 
 tions should sit in the hall of the Hotel de Ville. They were, 
 therefore, in touch with the Old Communal Council, which sat 
 in the next chamber, Potion, the Mayor, being their secret ally, 
 and Danton, the Assistant Procureur, their real chief. The 
 Mauconseil Section had threatened that if the Assembly did 
 not accept their petition the tocsin should be sounded at mid- 
 night, August Q. 2 The Section Quinze-vingts finally named 
 the same time. That, therefore, was the hour fixed for insur- 
 rection. 
 
 Mandat, the commandant of the National Guard, made all 
 preparations for the defence of the Tuileries. Westermann 
 was chosen to lead the people to the assault. On the 9th 
 Roederer, the Departmental Procureur Syndic, wrote to Petion 
 requesting him to say what steps he had taken to prevent the 
 tocsin being sounded, and suggesting that he should issue a 
 warning to the citizens against disorder. This Petion did, and 
 it was read at certain of the Sections, which met about eight 
 o'clock that evening, and must have considerably damped the 
 revolutionary fervour of some of them. Mandat, commandant 
 of the National Guard, also wrote to Petion asking him to 
 authorise various changes in the disposition of the troops. 
 Between five and six o'clock Petion went to the Assembly and 
 gave it assurances that order would be maintained. 3 Roederer 
 took him thence to the Departmental Directory, and it was 
 
 1 When the mob first got into the Tuileries. 
 
 2 M.-T. ii. 181, and Bat. du 10 AoAt, p. 247. 
 8 M.-T. ii. 222. 
 
82 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 settled that the Departmental and Communal Councils should 
 both hold permanent session. Then Petion went to the Hotel 
 de Ville and found there letters from Mandat pressing him to 
 come to the Tuileries. 
 
 Petion was a man of a vanity so prodigious that a reader of 
 his self-revelations is at a loss to decide whether they are more 
 odious or more ridiculous. They excite more disgust than 
 contempt in his account of the return from Varennes, more 
 amazement than amusement when he was flying for his life in 
 I 793- Vanity had for him the force which higher instincts 
 have for better balanced minds. It was as a crown to the 
 glory of his triumphal progress in the Berline, as a strong staff 
 to him while limping painfully through the Valley of the 
 Shadow ; for it enabled him to revel in the supposed passion 
 excited in some female bosom by his form and countenance, 
 whether his victim were a princess or a peasant. On the 
 present occasion it supplied, or rather reinforced, his courage, 
 for physically he does not seem to have been a coward. He 
 afterwards with incredible frankness himself admitted, that 
 when on this night all other men's minds were absorbed in 
 terrible realities he was, as usual, posturing, so to speak, before 
 a looking-glass. l Je desirais F insurrection, mats je tremblais 
 qu'elle ne reussit pas? Ma position etait critique ; il fallait 
 faire mon devoir de citoyen sans manquer a celui de magistrat. 
 II fallait conserver tous les dehors et ne point rrfeearter des 
 formes.' In other words, the dignity of this quintessence of all 
 mayors demanded that he should lie decorously and handle a 
 dagger only with a kid glove. Even his false assurances to 
 the Assembly and his hypocritical admonitions to the people 
 were dictated rather by the vanity of the official than the 
 politician's craft. And now, when to enter the Tuileries was 
 to enter the lion's den, it was, no doubt, vanity in arms that 
 spurred him on. In the Tuileries it had been grievously 
 wounded by the King's curt * Taisez-vous' after June 20. In 
 the Tuileries he, Sergent, and Panis had been hooted, had, to 
 1 M.-T. ii. 223. 
 
1792 POTION'S CONDUCT 83 
 
 quote a Monarchical historian, met with a reception 'plus que 
 brutar nay, had experienced *- votes def ait trh reprehensible*? ' 
 Sergent no doubt, who had been actually knocked down, 2 had 
 borne this in mind when he handed the Marseillais their 
 cartridges. Too well were he and Panis to remember it in 
 September. Potion must have remembered it too. As he 
 listened to the King's angry words and to the curses and 
 threats of the Royalists in the garden he must have consoled 
 himself with the thoughts of the morrow. 3 But his relief must 
 have been great when at 2 A.M. the Assembly sent for him 
 after he had been for nearly three hours in a most disagreeable 
 position. Merely reiterating his assurances to the Assembly, 
 he went straight to the Hotel de Ville, leaving his luckless 
 coachman shivering on the box of his carriage at the Tuileries, 
 till between three and four o'clock in despair the man drove home. 
 At about six he tasted the first sweets of revenge in summon- 
 ing Mandat, who had just cross-questioned him at the palace, 
 to be cross-questioned in his turn at the Hotel de Ville. 
 Then, having with one hand helped the Revolution materially 
 and with the other seriously imperilled its chance of success, 
 he serenely welcomed at the Mairie the force sent by the Insur- 
 rectionary Commune to lock him up, and retired with his 
 Mayor's laurels, as he flattered himself, immaculate, only to re- 
 appear with something of the martyr's halo in their place. 4 
 ' Id le maire de Paris a manque d'etre assassine dans la nuit du 
 g au 10.' So ran the legend on the flag which waved over the 
 conquered palace. Some men might be mourning over the 
 fall of an ancient monarchy. Others might be exulting in the 
 liberty won by a noble nation too long enslaved. But this 
 was the outward and visible sign of the Parisians' feelings. 
 
 1 M.-T. i. 235, 237. 2 Bat. du 10 Ao&t, p. 238. 
 
 3 Condorcet (Mem. de Condorcet sur la Revolution, 1824, ii. 205) says 
 that after being closeted with Petion from 1 1 till 12 o'clock the King came 
 out and said, ' Soyez tranquilles, messieurs ; monsieur le maire m'asi-ure 
 que tout se pacific.' 
 
 4 For Petion's defence that to appeal to force would have meant civil 
 war, see M. xiii. 375. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 Almost might they be sooner pardoned for the massacres of 
 September than for making such a posing ape their idol. * He 
 doubled the parts of Pontius Pilate and Judas,' says Mortimer- 
 Ternaux, and his epigram is just. 
 
 It has been necessary to particularise Petion's conduct in 
 order to estimate properly the veracity of the Bulletin of the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal, which makes Danton at his trial 
 attribute to him a protagonist's part in the night's events. 
 
 Petion, coming from the Commune, came to the Corde- 
 liers Club, told us the tocsin would sound at midnight, and 
 that the next day would be the tomb of royalty. He said that 
 the Royalists had planned a night attack, but he had so 
 managed matters that everything should be done in broad day- 
 light and be over by midday, and that the patriots were sure 
 to win. 
 
 But the independent notes of Topino-Lebrun tell a very 
 different tale, 
 
 I was (said Danton) at the Cordeliers, though a delegate of 
 the Commune. I said to the Minister Claviere, who came 
 from the Commune, that we were going to proclaim the 
 insurrection. After having arranged all the operations and 
 the hour for the attack I lay down on my bed, like a soldier, 
 having given orders that I should be called. I rose at one 
 and went to the Commune, now become revolutionary. I 
 delivered to his doom Mandat, who had orders to fire on 
 the people. The Mayor was arrested and I remained 
 there (i.e. at the Commune), according to the desire of the 
 patriots. 
 
 There can be but little doubt which of these two versions is 
 the correct one, the Bulletin's mendacious elevation of Petion 
 out of his actual service as decoy being a palpable attempt 
 to detract from Dan ton's share in the loth of August, and 
 so lower him in the eyes of those to whom that day was 
 sacred. His answer to the charge of having sneaked off to 
 Arcis out of danger was similarly garbled, for similar reasons. 
 But Topino-Lebrun again comes to our aid with Danton's real 
 words : 
 
1792 DANTON, AUGUST 9~IO 85 
 
 1 It was I who prepared the events of August 10, and I 
 went to Arcis ' for Danton is a good son ' to spend three 
 days, bid my mother good-bye, and regulate my affairs.' 
 
 How one poor woman's heart at Arcis would have ached 
 could she have heard this answer, and how she would have 
 attested its truth with her tears ! For what he said about his 
 expedition to Arcis was quite true. His presence there on the 
 6th, and its object, is proved by the legal document in 
 which he made provision for his mother. 
 
 According to the Bulletin he also said, 
 
 I never left my Section except after giving word I should 
 be apprised if anything fresh happened. I remained in my 
 Section twelve hours on end, and came back at nine next day. 
 
 Now what was Danton doing on the night of the gth and 
 the morning of the loth? It is difficult, or rather impos- 
 sible, to specify with absolute certainty, hour by hour and 
 act by act. If we take it that he was the soul of the insur- 
 rection we must also take it that its history is his, and 
 that to relate the one is to relate the other. But by collating 
 ascertained facts and comparing them with Topino-Lebrun's 
 notes, with the Bulletin, with the diary of Lucile Desmoulins, and 
 with other narratives, we may arrive at something more definite 
 and in the main correct. If there are discrepancies in the evi- 
 dence it is only to be expected. At such a crisis each narrator 
 naturally makes small mistakes of time or place, especially when 
 the narrative is written months afterwards, as Lucile Desmoulins' 
 was. When guns are going off, or bells ringing, or persons are 
 repeatedly entering and leaving a house amid great excitement 
 the future recorder does not pull out his watch and time and 
 note down precisely the quarter of an hour of such exits and 
 entrances, nor is he able to be sure which was the first gun or 
 the first bell. The result is a variety of perplexing details 
 impossible to reconcile if we do not make some allowance for 
 the looseness of expressions such as ' about midnight,' ' towards 
 evening,' ' between eleven and twelve,' or even the apparently 
 
86 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 more exact 'half-past eleven,' 'a quarter to twelve'; for a 
 quarter of an hour deducted from one story and added to 
 another may make all the difference between a straightforward 
 account and a tangle of contradictions. 
 
 Now, Danton was in Paris on July 30, as we have seen, and 
 his action there of itself disproves Robespierre's impudent 
 charge of poltroonery. On August 6th he was at Arcis, and 
 his reason for going there is instructive. We, unable to see, 
 as contemporaries saw, the state of things in August, and 
 remembering only which side won, are apt to think of him and 
 his friends as advancing to the destruction of a feeble monarchy 
 with a tiger's leap, terrible, irresistible, confident. The exact 
 opposite would be nearer the truth. Danton went to Arcis as 
 a man who knew he might be dead a week later. ' Si feus se 
 eie vaincuj he said, when all was over, l je serais criminel. 
 La cause de la liberte a triomphe? Barbaroux had poison in 
 his pocket on the night of the 9th, in case of defeat. Freron 
 despaired of success. If the King's interviews with his con- 
 fessor showed that he was in fear of the Revolutionists, so were 
 they of him, or rather of the Queen. They thought the 
 enemy would act on the offensive, and expected an attack on 
 the 9th. Dr. Moore was told on the morning of the loth that 
 during the night ' false patrols were despatched all round under 
 semblance of patrols of the National Guards to keep the peace, 
 but in reality with the most hostile intentions against the 
 citizens ' ; that this had been discovered and some of them 
 had been killed. The Queen and her entourage, with the 
 only real and the only really well-appointed soldiers in Paris 
 fighting for them, with good officers, with plenty of cannon, 
 with strong walls under shelter of which volleys of musketry 
 could be poured on an exposed crowd, with the flower of the 
 swordsmen of France to reinforce the Swiss, and with a total 
 fighting force of several thousand men, were full of contempt 
 for the undisciplined mob, and up to the very last eager to 
 bring matters to an issue. Dr. Moore, writing on the loth, 
 says : ' All agree that the Swiss began hostilities by giving the 
 
1792 LUCILE'S JOURNAL 87 
 
 first fire on the people ' ; and though he can see no motive 
 which the Swiss could have for firing but self-defence, those 
 who commanded the Swiss had other motives, and what ' all ' 
 said is likely to have been true. 
 
 The Sections, on the other hand, were irresolute and 
 divided, and Potion's hypocritical appeal divided them still 
 more. Even on the morning of the loth it was uncertain if 
 they would rise. ' Le tocsin ne rend pas,' they said at the 
 Tuileries, in disappointment, perhaps, more than in relief. 
 But in either case for a time it seemed as if it was true. All 
 the doubts and fears of the moment are vividly reflected in 
 Lucile's journal. She and her husband had been out of Paris, 
 probably on some such errand as Danton. Probably, too, he 
 returned the same day they did, viz. on the 8th. On the 9th 
 they entertained some Marseillais at dinner. After dinner the 
 company adjourned to Danton's lodgings. There his wife's 
 mother sat weeping, and Lucile, though laughing hysterically, 
 knew that her laughter must end that night in tears. And in 
 fact that very night she wrote in her diary, ' What will become 
 of us? I can endure no more. Camille, my poor Camille, 
 what will become of you? I have no strength to breathe. 
 This night, this fatal night ! My God ! if it is true that Thou 
 hast any existence, save the men that are worthy of Thee ! 
 We want to be free. O God ! the cost of it ! ' 
 
 'While the rest of the company "feared that the Sections 
 might not rise, Danton was ' resolute.' The Passage de la 
 Cour du Commerce, where he lived, was close to the Cordeliers 
 Club, and when he said at his trial that he never left his 
 Section for twelve hours he meant that he never left the 
 Section Theatre Francois, which comprised the Cordeliers. As 
 evening came on the two women went out to escort Mme. 
 Charpentier home. The loveliness of the night tempted them 
 to take a walk in the streets, which were pretty full of people. 
 They retraced their steps and sat down at a cafe in the Place 
 de TOdeon. Some sans-culottes went by shouting * Vive la 
 Nation ! ' and then some cavalry, followed by a vast throng. 
 
88 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 This frightened them, and, bidding Mme. Charpentier good- 
 bye, they went back to Danton's house, where they found a 
 number of people, and among them Freron and Robert's wife. 
 Danton was there too, and now 'agitated.' Lucile ran to 
 Madame Robert and asked, ' Is the tocsin to be sounded ? ' 
 and she answered, ' Yes, to-night.' Lucile whispered her fears 
 to her husband, who said he would stay by Danton's side. 
 Subsequently she heard he had exposed his life. Freron was 
 despondent, saying he was tired of life and longed to die. 
 Then the men armed themselves and went out. Lucile looked 
 out into the night. It was still and beautiful, and the moon 
 shone on almost deserted streets. But in the Faubourg St. 
 Germain, not far off, they were all illuminated, as Dr. Moore 
 tells us, and if Lucile's gaze could have reached the Faubourg 
 St. Antoine there too she would have seen lights in every 
 window, and would have heard the tramp of patrols breaking 
 at intervals the sinister silence. Danton, of whom Lucile 
 curiously writes, ' // ne sortit presque point] by which appa- 
 rently she means that he only went to the Cordeliers Club and 
 back, did not seem very anxious, and was going to lie down ; 
 but towards midnight several messengers came for him, and at 
 last he went out for the Commune. 
 
 As twelve o'clock struck the first note of the tocsin sounded 
 from the Cordeliers. St. Antoine answered, and bell after 
 bell pealed through Paris the people's response to their leader's 
 call. The women wept and listened. After a long time 
 Danton came back, and, giving only vague answers to Madame 
 Robert's frenzied inquiries for her husband, went to throw 
 himself on his bed. But Lucile, in spite of Danton's attempt 
 to lull their alarm, guessed that the people were going to the 
 Tuileries, and said so amid her sobs to those who vainly tried 
 to comfort her. Madame Robert could hear nothing of her 
 husband, and vowed if he were killed she would poniard 
 Danton, ' the rallying point of the insurrection,' with her own 
 hand. ' Mais ce Danton, lui, si mon mari p'erit je suis femme 
 a le poignarder? Desmoulins came back at one o'clock and 
 
1792 LUCILE'S JOURNAL 89 
 
 at once fell asleep, his head on Lucile's shoulder. Did he go 
 out again ? Lucile does not say so, but it is perhaps implied 
 by her saying he went to bed when it was broad daylight, i.e. 
 about 5 A.M. Madame Dan ton, whom she had induced to 
 come to her own lodging, lay down expecting to hear her 
 husband was killed. Danton therefore, at all events, must 
 have slept only a short time, and again have gone out. After 
 the three had risen Camille left them, promising Lucile not to 
 run into danger. The women breakfasted. No tidings of 
 what was going on came, and they were reading the journal of 
 the night before when suddenly they heard the roar of cannon. 
 Gabrielle, Danton's wife, fainted, and Lucile, half fainting her- 
 self, tended her, while Jeannette, the cook, stood by ' bleating 
 like a nanny goat,' and wanting to trounce a certain person who 
 was throwing blame on Camille. Reviving a little, they 
 attempted to go to Danton's house, but found the gate of the 
 Cour du Commerce closed, and when they tried to effect a 
 side entry through a baker's shop had the door slammed in 
 their faces by the baker. At last they got in. Danton was 
 absent, and for a considerable time they could get no news. 
 
 While such scenes were occurring in the humble house- 
 holds of Desmoulins and Danton, in the Tuileries too there 
 was weary watching. Madame Elisabeth and the Queen were 
 quite worn out when the noise of Petion's departing carriage 
 was heard. Madame Elisabeth ran to the window, and open- 
 ing the shutter was amazed at the colouring of the heavens. 
 'Come, sister,' she cried, 'and look at the dawn.' An 
 ominous outlook if they had faith in old proverbs ; for the sky 
 was red as blood. 
 
 ' Let us never glorify revolution,' ingeminates an eloquent 
 writer in his essay on an English revolution. And who, as he 
 reads the stories of this night, would not echo his refrain ? Let 
 us never glorify revolution. But nevertheless let us weigh 
 revolutions in just scales, nor, out of pity for a losing side, 
 traduce their great men. Whatever else is clear from Lucile's 
 account, it is clear that Danton did not spend the night com- 
 
90 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 fortably in bed and in that l sommeil pesanf at which his 
 enemies have sneered. 1 
 
 Another and circumstantial account of his movements is to 
 be found in the * Bataillon du Dix Aotit? According to its 
 authors he went first, on the evening of the Qth, to the Church 
 of St. Andre des Arcs, where his Section, of which he was 
 president, held its meetings. This would be between eight and 
 nine o'clock. Thence he went to the Cordeliers, where 
 Camille, Robert, and Freron followed him, and occupied the 
 chair at their meeting for a short time. But he was mainly 
 occupied in delivering stirring addresses to the Marseillais. At 
 eleven o'clock it was reported at the Tuileries that he had told 
 them they must not expect they were going to have a holiday 
 promenade. At half-past eleven he had just finished speaking, 
 when a shot in the Cour du Commerce was heard, and every- 
 one cried, * To arms ! to arms ! ' The Marseillais formed 
 ranks and marched to the Pont St. Michel, arriving there just 
 after some delegates from the Section Mauconseil had reached 
 the Pont Neuf. There stood the gun which (though in the 
 hands of Mandat's troops !) was to be fired as a signal for the 
 sounding of the tocsin. Mandat's officer, Wille, naturally 
 refused to let the Marseillais pass ; but when orders came 
 from the Commune bidding htm withdraw his battery his 
 gunners obeyed in defiance of him. Then the alarm-gun was 
 at last fired at a quarter to one, and the tocsin sounded, in the 
 Lombard and Mauconseil Sections first, and afterwards all over 
 Paris. Danton, who had gone home and thrown himself on 
 his bed towards one o'clock, was summoned at one to the 
 Hotel de Ville, where the Insurrectionary Commune had just 
 been proclaimed. There Manuel (procureur of the old Com- 
 mune, which held session for some time simultaneously with 
 the new one) signed the order for retiring Wille's battalion 
 from the Pont Neuf. Danton charged himself with the trans- 
 mission of the order, and having done so returned to the 
 Hotel de Ville and ordered back other troops who were barring 
 1 G. de Cassagnac, Hist, des Girondins^ b. xi. sec. v. 
 
1792 INSURGENTS' PLAN OF MARCH 91 
 
 the march of the men of St. Antoine. The next step was to 
 summon Mandat before the Commune. 
 
 In several points this narrative clashes with Lucile's, but in 
 others it elucidates hers. It would be in one of the intervals 
 between his visits to the Cordeliers that Danton first snatched 
 some sleep in the Cour du Commerce. In coming from St 
 Andre, for instance, he may have taken the Courdu Commerce 
 on his way. And whereas he had been ' resolute ' early in the 
 evening this narrative shows why he was * agitated ' later on ; 
 for besides the trouble of Madame Robert's anxiety and Fre"- 
 ron's dejection he had been haranguing the Marseillais to this 
 effect : 
 
 The people can no longer rely upon anyone but itself, for 
 the Constitution is inadequate and the Assembly has acquitted 
 Lafayette. To absolve that traitor is to deliver us to him, to 
 the enemies of France, to the sanguinary vengeance of the allied 
 kings. Your only chance, therefore, is to save yourselves. 
 Quick, then, for this very night a sortie is to be made on the 
 people by creatures in the Chateau, to massacre us before they 
 quit Paris for Coblentz. Save yourselves, therefore. To arms ! 
 to arms ! * 
 
 And, in addition to addressing the Marseillais, Danton had 
 been settling with Westermann, Alexandre, Santerre, Moisson, 
 and Gamier all the details of the march of the three columns 
 which were to advance on the north of the Seine from St. 
 Antoine, on the south from St. Marceau and the Cordeliers, 
 upon the Tuileries ; St. Marceau to cross the river by the Pont 
 Neuf or Pont Royal, the Marseillais by the Pont St. Michel and 
 the Pont au Change. St. Antoine was to take its orders from 
 the Hotel de Ville, but the headquarters of St. Marceau as 
 well as of the Marseillais were the Cordeliers. 
 /From all this it seems certain that though we should be 
 wrong in saying that August 10 was the work of any one man, 
 Danton was then, as he had been since 1791, the chief man of 
 the Sections, who more than anyone united them, cheered them, 
 
 1 Cf. Alison's French Rev. i. 325, and Bat. du 10 Ao&l, p. 278. 
 
92 LIFE OF DANTON .1792 
 
 organised them for the combat. Those in whose eyes all rebel- 
 lions are crimes will so much the more execrate his name. But 
 they can never affirm with Robespierre that he was a coward as 
 well as rebel, and left his fellow rebels in the lurch. 
 
 With the summons sent by the old Commune to Mandat 
 begins a fresh tangle of contradictory accounts, which might be 
 easier to unravel if it had been possible subsequently to induce 
 its secretary, Royer-Collard, to produce the minutes of the 
 night's proceedings. 1 Mandat, after much hesitation, was 
 persuaded by Rcederer to obey Potion's summons, and reached 
 the Hotel de Ville about 5.30 A.M. There, after being inter- 
 rogated by the council of the old Commune, he was dismissed, 
 only to be seized by adherents of the Insurrectionary Commune, 
 which, it must be remembered, was sitting in a room close to 
 the old one, and was in collusion with some of its members. 
 Huguenin was its president. According to Vilain d'Aubigny's 
 narrative of what he was told by the citizen Dufraisse, it was 
 Danton who with his own hands seized Mandat. How much 
 of D'Aubigny's story is true, it is impossible to say. And here 
 it may be remarked that any impartial writer who would examine 
 carefully and adjudicate upon the credibility of the innumer- 
 able writers on the French Revolution would perform a more 
 useful as it would be a more arduous task than that of writing 
 many histories. Where every other man is accused of some 
 crime by his neighbour it is hard indeed to pick and choose 
 between them as authorities. D'Aubigny, for instance, was 
 accused of robbery of the Garde-Meuble, but he was acquitted, 
 and though the hour of the morning at which Dufraisse is said 
 to have conversed with him is inexplicable there is certainly 
 verisimilitude in his narrative. 
 
 Mandat, it alleges, went into the office of the General Staff, 
 which was also in the Hotel de Ville, after leaving the council- 
 room of the Commune. There Danton followed him and sum- 
 moned him before the new Commune. Mandat denied its 
 legality, and said he would not appear before factious rebels, 
 1 Hamel's Robespierre^ b. viii. sec. xix. 
 
1792 MANDAT'S DEATH 93 
 
 nor would answer for his acts to any but honourable men ; 
 whereat Danton sprang at his throat as he stood in the middle 
 of his staff, saying, ' Traitor ! you will be forced to obey the 
 Commune, which will save the people, whom you are betraying, 
 and against whom you are conspiring with the tyrant,' and 
 dragged him by the collar before the Insurrectionary Commune. 
 To its members Mandat said in his defence that he had Pe'tion's 
 order to repel force by force, but had left it behind him. 
 This may have been true, though his not having it with him was 
 suspicious ; but his interrogators merely sent to Petion for con- 
 firmation of the assertion. This at least acquits Petion of the 
 charge of having got Mandat murdered, and the body thrown 
 into the Seine, in order to destroy all trace of the written order. 
 And the defence is superfluous, for Petion would certainly have 
 considered murder an indecorous act for a mayor. Mandat, 
 however, had no orders from Petion to beat the rappel or to 
 increase the number of National Guards at the Tuileries, and 
 had therefore disobeyed the law ; * and when suddenly his 
 own order to attack the people in the rear on their march to 
 the Tuileries was produced against him he was at once sent to 
 the Communal prison, and not without reason. 
 
 Mandat was a gallant man. No one can read of his death 
 without pitying him. But he had been on the popular side 
 when an officer in the Gardes Francises, and had been, in 
 fact, like Lafayette, in very bad odour with the Court as 
 a strong Constitutionalist. By the people he, like Lafayette, 
 was now looked on as a renegade, and this order seemed 
 to his judges an atrocity. It has been urged that when 
 crushing an insurrection it matters little whether you do so 
 by an attack in front, on the flanks, or in the rear. This, 
 however, is a more specious than just argument. Along with 
 and following any revolutionary body in Paris always went a 
 crowd of unarmed men and women. 2 To charge them, or even 
 the presumable combatants, with cavalry and infantry before a 
 
 1 Bat. du loAotit, p. 258 ; G. de Cassagnac, Hist, des Girondins, b. xii. 
 sec. 2. 2 M.-T. i. 167. 
 
94 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 shot was fired, or ever they had got near the Tuileries, might 
 strategically be good tactics, but to the citizens spelt murder. 
 At any rate, with the author of such an order in their hands, 
 they would have been mere madmen to let him return to the 
 Tuileries. 
 
 In Danton's eyes he was a dangerous traitor. When at his 
 own trial Danton's accusers sought to prove his contra-revolu- 
 tionary conduct on the loth he replied, ' Je fis I'arret de mort 
 de Mandate What this means is not quite clear. After Mandat 
 had been dismissed by the old Commune the Insurrectionary 
 Commune, which consisted of commissioners chosen by certain 
 of the Sections the previous evening, seized him, questioned 
 him, appointed Santerre commander in his stead, and, on the 
 fatal firing-order being produced, committed him to the 
 Communal prison. They then turned out the old Commune, 
 with the exception of Danton, Petion, and Manuel, and took 
 possession of their hall. There they decided on sending 
 Mandat to the Abbaye prison. Danton in 1794 said. ''Je fis 
 Farret de mort de Mandat? By this he meant either, in the 
 more colloquial sense of the phrase, 1 'I doomed Mandat' 
 that is, by bringing him before the Insurrectionary Commune 
 or, less probably, though that is how it has been interpreted, 
 ' I made out the warrant committing him to prison on a capital 
 charge.' * Sentence of death,' 2 of course, he had no power to 
 pass. Mandat never reached the Abbaye, having been shot on 
 the staircase of the Hotel de Ville about seven o'clock. Petion, 
 according to pre-arrangement, was then confined to his own 
 house, under guard. And about eight o'clock the first ranks of 
 the Revolutionists were in the Carrousel. 
 
 in spite of Mandat's death the odds were still in favour of 
 the King. But he was king only in name. It has been said 
 picturesquely of the deaths of kings that ' their sunset paints all 
 their sky, and we remember not how they bore their glorious 
 
 1 Cf. M. iv. 312. It, xiii. 378, gives 'un mandat d'arret ' in its 
 account of what happened. 
 
 2 So it is interpreted in Taine, Eng. tr. ii. 178. 
 
1792 STORIES OF THE KING 95 
 
 burden, but with what grace they laid it down,' and it was 
 certainly true of Louis. Till he entered the Temple everyone 
 in Paris, whether Royalist or Revolutionist, seems to have 
 despised him. When the Queen had urged him to put himself 
 at the head of his army the Princesse de Lamballe says it was 
 like speaking to a corpse. 1 On the day the Bastille was taken 
 he made in his diary the entry, * Rien? Even such a barber's 
 block as Potion looked on him with contempt. Petion men- 
 tions the language used about him, before he set out to fetch 
 him back from Varennes, at a meeting consisting of himself, 
 Tray, Duport, Barnave, Maubourg, and Lafayette. ' Chacun 
 disait que ce gros cochon-la etait fort embarrassant? Maubourg 
 afterwards spoke of him as ' une bete qui s'est laisse entrdiner,' 
 Barnave as * un imbecile] Petion as of a face * inanimee dune 
 maniere vraiment desolante, tt, a vrai dire^ cette masse de chair 
 est insensible? All sorts of stories were told to his discredit, 
 chiefly, it would seem, in the upper circles of society. His 
 boorishness as a bridegroom had moved his grandfather to 
 indecent mirth, and Marie Antoinette, it was said, to more 
 delicate raillery. 2 Young Montmorin, according to Gouverneur 
 Morris, told M. de Trudaine that he was by nature cruel and 
 base. 3 
 
 An instance of his cruelty among others is that he used to 
 spit and roast live cats. In riding with Madame de Flahaut I 
 tell her that I could not believe such things. She tells me that 
 when young he was guilty of such things ; that he is very brutal 
 and nasty, which she attributes chiefly to a bad education. 
 His brutality once led him so far, while Dauphin, as to beat 
 his wife, for which he was exiled four days by his grandfather. 3 
 
 Thiebault says that his laugh was loud and coarse, and more 
 like that of a tipsy farmer than of a monarch, and relates how 
 near 
 
 1 Secret Memoirs of the Royal Family of France from Journal, Letter s v 
 &*., of the Princess Lamballe, ed. 1895, ii. 8. 
 1 Ibid. i. 48, 49. 
 * The Letters and Diary of Gouverneur Morris, i. 431. 
 
96 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 the Tuileries he saw a lady who had a pretty little spaniel 
 with her, which, before she noticed it, ran close up to the King. 
 Making a low curtsey, she called the dog back in haste ; but 
 as the animal turned to run to its mistress, the King, who had 
 a large cane in his hand, broke its back with a blow of his 
 cudgel. Then, amid the screams and tears of the lady, and 
 as the poor little beast was breathing its last, the King, 
 delighted with his exploit, continued his walk, slouching 
 rather more than usual and laughing like any lout of a peasant. 
 
 This, Thiebault adds, was 'in keeping with the cuts of 
 his whip with which the King used to gratify any hairdressers 
 or priests who were unlucky enough to come in his way when 
 hunting.' And this charge tallies with that of the Deputy 
 Peyssard, cure of Falleron : * Ses premiers jeux furent des jeux 
 de sang, et sa brutalite croissant avec Page il se delectait d 
 Fassouvir sur tous les animaux qdil rencontrait? x 
 
 In Gaston Maugras' biography of the Due de Lauzun he 
 is thus depicted : 
 
 At meals he ate grossly. This is the programme of a 
 morning : At six o'clock the King rings and asks what there is 
 lor breakfast. 'A fat fowl, Sir, and cutlets.' 'That is not 
 much ; I will have eggs with gravy.' He himself superintends 
 the preparation, eats four cutlets, the fowl, six eggs aujus, and 
 a slice of bacon, drinking a bottle and a half of champagne ; 
 he then dresses, goes out hunting, and comes in with an 
 incredible appetite for dinner. 2 
 
 He could always eat and always did eat in the direst 
 crises of his life. Some writers have extolled the philosophy with 
 which, on his return from his examination by the Convention, 
 he begged a crust from Chaumette. But with his habits he 
 must in reality have been ravenously hungry, for he had 
 breakfasted eight hours before. In the Logographe box, 
 while the fight at the Tuileries was going on, he sucked a 
 peach. '// mangeaitj writes the mordant historian, ' pendant 
 
 > M.-T. v. 535- 
 
 1 The Due de Lauzun and the Court of Marie Antoinette , Eng. 
 tr. p. 24. 
 
1792 THE KING'S HABITS 97 
 
 qu'on mourut pour lui? l His suspicious gaolers in the Temple 
 laid rude hands on the peaches and macaroons. Yet his dinner 
 there was not insufficient. In November it consisted every 
 day of four entries, two roasts, four side dishes, three tarts, 
 three dishes of fruit, a small decanter of Bordeaux and one 
 of Malvoisie or Madeira, the wine being for him alone. 
 Michelet, who records this, also relates that after dinner his 
 habit was to sleep * for two hours in the midst of his family,' 
 and that one who had seen him described him as short- 
 sighted, vacant-looking, with a slouching, waddling walk, 
 like a fat farmer. 2 When he was brought back to the Tuileries 
 from Varennes Camille Desmoulins says that his first words, 
 more natural than royal, were, ' It's devilish hot,' and then, 
 
 ' That was a journey.' Afterwards, looking towards the 
 
 National Guards who were present, he said, ' I have done a 
 foolish thing, I acknowledge. But must not I have my 
 follies, like other people ? Come, bring me a chicken.' They 
 brought the chicken, and Louis XVI. ate and drank with 
 an appetite which would have done honour to the * King of 
 Cockayne.' 3 
 
 His personal appearance was not calculated to arouse 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 He was about five feet five inches high. His physical 
 structure was large and common -looking. . . . He had pale 
 blue eyes, without the slightest expression, and a loud laugh 
 which savoured of imbecility. He was short-sighted ; his 
 carriage was most awkward, and his whole appearance was 
 that of a badly brought up rustic. . . . He ate like a pig and 
 drank like a fish ; he scarcely ever left the table without being 
 a little unsteady, and then his jokes with the one he wanted to 
 entertain were somewhat gross. 4 
 
 We might distrust this as coming from Barere, but he goes on 
 to say that 'his judgment was clear, he meai.t well, and would 
 
 1 Michelet, b. ix. c. vii. * Ibid. 
 
 8 Revolutions de France et de Brabant, No. 83, quoted in Claretie's 
 Desmoulins ', p. 1 7 1. 
 
 * Memoirs of Bartre, translated by Paycn-Fayne. 
 
 H 
 
98 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 have always done well if his disposition had been supported 
 by a true woman or a truly patriotic Minister.' 
 
 All this gossip, certainly malevolent, and much of it 
 perhaps untrue, ought, as any biographer of the much vilified 
 Danton would be the first to admit, to be most carefully 
 sifted before it could be accepted as a faithful portrait of 
 the King. Here it is quoted because, whether false or true, 
 it equally evinces the small estimation in which he was 
 held, just as the stories about Danton prove how much he was 
 dreaded. 1 And undoubtedly it tends to show how much it 
 was owing to his personal shortcomings, whether they were 
 his fault or his misfortune, that he lost his throne. Even the 
 
 1 This seems, though it has been denied to be, an accurate description 
 of the net result of Paris talk about the two men. Danton assuredly was 
 ' dreaded ' rather than ' held in small estimation.' It rests with those who 
 think that Louis was not ' held in small estimation ' to investigate the 
 evidence against him, as Danton's defenders have investigated the evidence 
 against Danton. To investigate it was not within the scope of this book. 
 But not to notice it was impossible, because it influenced history at the 
 time, and has lately been brought prominently before English readers in 
 books like Thiebault's Memoirs, which Mr. A. J. Butler has translated, and 
 the new edition of the Princess Lamballe's Memoirs of the Royal Family. 
 Nor because it may be termed malevolent can it be dismissed offhand as 
 a mass of lies. Michelet makes mistakes, and his language about Louis is 
 certainly the reverse of benevolent, but anyone calling Michelet ' a liar ' 
 would only stamp himself as one. The Notivelle Biographie calls attention 
 10 the ' droiture ' and ' sincerite de caracfere ' of Gouverneur Morris, whose 
 strongest remarks about Louis are not quoted in the text. M. Aulard 
 testifies to the ' veracite ingenue ' of Thiebault, whose evidence as to 
 what he has seen has an importance altogether different from that of his 
 hearsay and opinions. Barere was a liar, but his praise of Louis, above 
 mentioned, certainly makes his uncomplimentary remarks seem the more 
 credible. Taine is ready enough to accept his evidence against revolu- 
 tionists when he writes : ' Mendacious as Barere is, his testimony here may 
 be accepted. I see no reason why he should state what is not true.' The 
 Princesse de Lamballe was devoted to the royal family. Vet her re- 
 mark quoted above is by no means her only one pointing to the small 
 estimation in which the King was held, e.g. ' From the imperfect idea 
 which many of the persons in office entertained of the King's capacity, few of 
 them ever made any communication of importance but to the Queen,' i. 307. 
 
1792 THE KINGS INERTNESS 99 
 
 most ardent Royalists could hardly conceal their shame at his 
 demeanour at the Tuileries. If he had spoken one cheering 
 word; if he had put himself at the head of his dauntless 
 Swiss ; if he had shown a spark of the spirit of his far more 
 harmful Queen ; if he had possessed one iota of the male- 
 ficent genius which that morning gleamed through Bonaparte's 
 eyes, 1 then, even at the last moment, Danton's half-organised 
 forces might have fared ill. But he came down to say his last 
 word to his soldiers with his hair unpowdered and out of curl, 
 his eyes red from sleep or tears, a dismal, slovenly figure 
 which could only blurt out, 'Well, they're coming, it's said. 
 I don't know what they want. My cause is that of good 
 citizens. We'll put a good face on it, won't we ? ' and so on. 
 No wonder that ' Vive le roi ! ' in the court changed soon to 
 * Vive la nation /' No wonder that Marie Antoinette 
 exclaimed on his return, * All is lost. The King has shown no 
 energy, and such a parade has done more harm than good. ' 2 
 And when, letting himself be guided by a man like Rrede. er, 
 he quitted the Tuileries before a blow was struck, it is said 
 that some of those he abandoned tore from their breasts their 
 crosses of St. Louis and broke their swords. 3 ' Le malheureux 
 prince* says a fanatically Royalist writer, * ne consider ait pas 
 qden agissant ainsi il livrait la vie de ses braves soldats aux 
 laches assassins. ' 4 What enemy of the King could condemn 
 him more severely than this apologist ? 
 
 Of these ' assassins ' Danton, say such writers, was c lache ' 
 beyond others, because he took no share in the fight. They 
 might as well talk of the cowardice of Carnot. But it is by no 
 means certain that, in spite of all he had done during the 
 evening and night, he was not in the ranks of the Cordeliers in 
 the morning. He says that when Petion was interned * he 
 remained there by the wish of the patriots.' By 'there,' 
 
 1 Claretie's Desmoulins, p. 196, where Bonaparte is said to have looked 
 on and muttered ' Est-ce bien la le degel de la nation ? ' 
 
 2 L. Blanc, b. vii. c. xv. s Michelet, b. vii. c. i. 
 * G. de Cassagnac, Hist, des Girondins, b. xi. sec. i. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 however, must be understood * at the Hotel de Ville,' not the 
 Mairie, which was some way off at the Palais de Justice. But 
 he does not say how long he remained. He may have remained 
 an hour or two, and then have gone to the Tuileries, where 
 the fighting began at half-past ten. D'Aubigny says positively 
 that he did so, that he left the Hotel de Ville and rallied the 
 columns after their first repulse. And we are told that an 
 autograph letter of Camille Desmoulins has been seen in which 
 it is mentioned that he and Danton took part in the combat. 1 
 Some colour to this is given by what Danton said at his trial. 
 'I know that on the loth Westermann came out of the 
 Tuileries covered with Royalist blood ; and as for me, that I 
 said one would have been able to save the country with 17,000 
 'men disposed as I had suggested.' It is curious, too, that 
 Louvet, spiteful though his intention is, should speak of him 
 as strutting about with a big sabre at the head of the Marseillais 
 after the victory, as if he had been the hero of the day. The 
 Marseillais would surely have resented that, and the historian 
 of the Terror, seeing the awkward construction which might be 
 put on Louvet's indiscreet sneer, and more astutely choosing 
 to represent Danton as absenting himself from the scene 
 altogether, suggests with a fine air of impartiality that as regards 
 Danton Louvet must be held 'suspect.' The best comment 
 on Louvet's sarcasm and his critic's Jesuitry, and what goes far 
 to prove that Danton was, whether he was in the actual fighting 
 or not, really the hero of the day, is that that night he was 
 Minister of Justice. 2 
 
 1 Vallard's Biographic de Danton, quoted by Lenox {Danton}, p. 107. 
 
 2 And not only so, but was the first elected of the Ministers, with the 
 right to sign for all departments of the Ministry till they were filled up. 
 Aulard's Recucil des Actes du Comite de Salut Public, i. 2. 
 
1792 101 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 1792 continued 
 
 RIVALRY OF COMMUNE AND ASSEMBLY DANTON'S STRENGTH AND 
 WEAKNESS FOLLY OF ASSEMBLY PANIC IN PARIS NO CENTRAL 
 
 AUTHORITY DANTON'S EFFORTS - POWER OF COMMUNE DANTON'S 
 
 SPEECH POWER OF PAN IS AND SERGENT DANTON'S LAST AT- 
 TEMPT ROLAND'S RESPONSIBILITY FOR MASSACRES BIRMINGHAM 
 RIOTS DANTON'S CIRCULAR, AUGUST 18. 
 
 To be called to the post of Minister at such a time was 
 to be called to a post of peril. However fundamentally 
 different may have been the tendencies of the Assembly and 
 Commune, opposition to the Court as distinct from opposition 
 to Monarchy had been ground hitherto common to both. But 
 after the loth of August other animosities instantly and 
 inevitably came into play. To overthrow the Monarchy was 
 arduous. To consolidate the Republic was far harder was, 
 in fact, to prove impossible. Flushed with success, the 
 Insurrectionary Commune suspended all the Committees of 
 Sections as well as the Departmental Directory, and showed 
 complete independence of the Assembly. 1 The Assembly, in 
 its turn, began to split up into groups, gradually but persistently 
 to grow more implacable in the Convention. Voltairism, 
 which was essentially anti-clerical, and Rousseauism, which was 
 essentially anti-monarchical, could work to a certain point and 
 to some purpose as destructive forces. But when schools of 
 thought were transformed, as after the loth, into political 
 parties, when the Legislative Assembly's impotence finally 
 demonstrated the Constituent Assembly's failure to engraft an 
 English constitution on a society of such alien growth as that 
 
 
102 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 of France, when, in short, it was necessary to construct, and 
 construct radically, neither Voltairists nor Rousseauists were 
 equal to the task, having either no political programme or 
 nothing but Utopias. 1 If the Republic were to be guided to 
 maturity it must be by a man neither indifferent nor a dreamer, 
 but content to aim at the possible^ to accept facts, to lay the 
 foundations of the social edifice without stopping to speculate 
 on the ultimate shape of its roof and towers. This was what 
 neither Girondins nor Robespierrists were content to do. This 
 was what Danton attempted. But whereas his practical genius 
 was welcomed, or at least used, by all as a rock of defence 
 against external peril, at home his single strength could not 
 stem the flood of intrigue and fanaticism by which it was 
 eventually swept away. His strength and his weakness were 
 both to be exemplified now. He could replenish the ranks. 
 He could electrify the spirit of the soldiers. He could replace 
 with victorious war what he rightly called the sham war '/# 
 guerre simulee ' of Lafayette. He could * save France from 
 Brunswick.' But he could not save her from the massacres of 
 September. The very moment he entered the Minister's 
 bureau a counter-current against him set in. In spite of what 
 he had done, and Robespierre had left undone, Robespierre on 
 September 5 was elected before him member for Paris. He 
 was on the eve of conflict with Marat; and Sergent, Panis, 
 and Billaud-Varenne were to go each his own way. Natural 
 mediator between Commune and Assembly, he met with 
 distrust in both, and had scarcely been a month in office 
 when he had to protest against * vain phantoms of dictatorship ' 
 which hostile eyes pretended to see. Meanwhile, while 
 steadily facing the sterner dangers looming ahead, it is 
 characteristic of his nature to find him emitting something like 
 a groan over the pettier drudgery of his new office. ' Le 
 ministre de la justice annonce ' (August 20) ' que depuis le 10 /'/ 
 a exp'edie cent quatre-vingt-trois decrets.' 1 a What else he had 
 
 1 Cf. Dubost's Danton et la Politique Contemporaim, passim. 
 
 2 M. xiii. 479. 
 
1792 PANIC IN PARIS 1 03 
 
 done, and was about to do, is connected inseparably with the 
 famous massacres. 
 
 To understand those massacres it is above all else neces- 
 sary to put oneself in the place of a Parisian of that time, to 
 whom they seemed what they were, the direct consequence of 
 August 10. We are apt to look on the Royal cause as lost 
 and the Revolution as triumphant when Louis fled from the 
 Tuileries to the Assembly. To the Parisian, and still more 
 to the average Frenchman, with his hereditary fear of the 
 Noblesse, the struggle seemed only begun and the Court a fee 
 only scotched, not killed. So hopeless, in fact, seemed the 
 outlook that the Executive was for abandoning Paris, and but 
 for Danton's resistance would have done so. 1 Meanwhile all 
 that month the air was filled with terrible rumours, hardly 
 more terrifying, however, than the actual events. The invasion 
 of France by the Prussians under Brunswick, by the Austrians 
 under Clairfait ; Frederick William's arrival at Luxembourg ; 
 the English Ambassador's recall ; the desertion of Lafayette ; 
 the surrender of Longwy ; the insurrection in La Vendee ; 
 Russia's menace of war ; the discovery of letters purporting to 
 convict the King of treason ; the capture of Stenay ; such 
 were the thunderclaps of news which day after day sounded 
 in the ears of Paris with more or less appalling import ; and 
 on September i a report came of the capture of Verdun. 
 
 As the surrender of Longwy had been followed by sentence 
 of exile on forty thousand recalcitrant priests, so the reported 
 capture of Verdun was followed by the massacres. We are 
 told what the effect of the news was in a pamphlet entitled 
 * The Whole Truth on the Real Authors of the Events of 
 September 2.' 2 A general cry, 
 
 1 Cf. Rtv. Fr. xxiv. 491-2. 'J'aifait venir, dit-il, ma mere qui a 
 soixinte-dix ans ; j'ai fait venir mes deux enfants. . . . Avant que les 
 Prussiens entrent dans Paris, je veux que vingt mille flambeaux, en un 
 instant, fassent de Paris un monceau de cendre.' Et se tournant vers 
 Roland, il lui dit : ' Roland, garde-toi de parler de fuite, crains que le 
 peuple ne t'ecoute.' 
 
 - The Reign of Terror, pub. 1826, i. 424. 
 
104 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 ' Let us march against the enemy ! ' was heard throughout the 
 city. * But . . . our most cruel enemies are not at Verdun ; 
 they are here in the prisons.' Many individuals spread abroad 
 this rumour, and others repeated it and gave it credence. 1 
 ' Our wives, our children will he left to the mercy of these 
 wretches and will be immolated,' exclaimed some ; while others 
 rejoined, ' Let us strike before we depart let us run to the 
 prisons.' This dreadful cry, a fact which all impartial men will 
 corroborate, was re-echoed at the same moment spontaneously 
 and unanimously through all the streets and public squares and 
 places where the inhabitants were assembled together and 
 associated, even in the National Assembly itself. 2 
 
 So too the Duchesse d'Angouleme relates that a municipal 
 officer named Mathieu said to her father in the Temple, ' The 
 emigrants are at Verdun ; if they come we shall all be lost, but 
 you shall be the first to perish.' 
 
 It was barely a month since Brunswick had proclaimed that 
 if the Tuileries were assaulted, or the smallest outrage were 
 offered to the King or Queen, Paris should be given over to 
 military vengeance. And now the Tuileries had been assaulted. 
 The King and Queen were prisoners in the Temple. 
 
 When I went into the street (writes Dr. Moore) people were 
 hurrying up and down with rapid steps and anxious faces ; 
 groups were formed at every corner ; one told in general that 
 a courier had arrived with very bad news ; another asserted 
 that Verdun had been betrayed, like Longwy, and that the 
 enemy were advancing ; others shook their heads and said it 
 was the traitors within Paris and not the declared enemies on 
 the frontier that were to be feared. 
 
 And these people, agitated by such emotions, were men who 
 were out of work, with nothing to do but sullenly watch events 
 and listen to or swell the cry, ever growing more and more 
 audible, of ' Blood for blood ! ' 3 For the sombre and imposing 
 ceremonial of August 27, in memory of those slain on the loth, 
 had intensified the longing for revenge. Plots too were in all 
 
 1 Not so Danton, cf. his ' de 1'audace ' speech later in this chapter. 
 
 2 Cf. Thiebault's Memoirs, Eng. tr. i. 125. 
 8 Michelet, b. vii. c. iii. 
 
1792 CAUSES OF THE MASSACRES 105 
 
 men's mouths plots of the Court with the invaders ; of dis- 
 guised priests thronging the city ; 1 of the prisoners to break 
 out of their prisons ; 2 of the Duke of Brunswick with traitors 
 in Paris, many in number and long in the pay of the Court ; 
 of concealed leaders ready to take the command of concealed 
 troops, who would set the Royal Family free and condemn to 
 death all the patriots remaining in Paris. 3 The Royalists were 
 said to be eagerly tracing on their maps each advance of the 
 Prussians and to be gloating over the gibbets which the emi- 
 grants had ready for erection when once they were within the 
 walls. 4 Some of the prisoners indulged in foolish threats and 
 prophecies which alarmed the volunteers, who felt them a peril 
 to their wives and families when they should be away with the 
 army. 5 The King's health and that of the Prussians was drunk 
 in costly wines by the inmates of the Abbaye carousing with 
 their mistresses, and hungry men were incensed by seeing 
 gaolers acting as valets, 6 and by rumours that they were paid 
 by assignats forged in gaol. 7 The extraordinary acquittal of 
 Montmorin found guilty of assisting in plots the tendency of 
 which was to kindle a civil war, but not guilty of an intention 
 to do mischief had made people think that justice was only to 
 be had if they enforced it with their own hands. ' For several 
 days before September 2,' says Moore, * frequent mention was 
 made of the indefensible delays of justice with regard to the 
 trials of the prisoners.' Deputation after deputation threatened 
 the Assembly. ' Lepeuple est las de n*etre venge ; craignez qrfil 
 ne se fasse justice. Louis XVI et Antoinette voulaient du sang ; 
 si avides du sang du peuple, quails soient rassasies en voyant 
 couler celui de leurs infames satellites?* And this dangerous 
 exasperation of the thirst for vengeance was still further inflamed 
 
 Michelet, b. vii. c. iii. 2 L. Blanc, b. viii. c. ii. 
 
 Moore's Journal, i. 302. 4 Michelet, b. vii. c. iii. 
 
 Michelet, b. vii. c. iii. 6 Ibid. 
 
 L. Blanc, b. viii. c. ii. 
 
 ' Je demande que Louis XVI et Marie Antoinette, si avides du sang 
 
 du peuple, soient rassasies en voyant couler celui de leurs infames satel- 
 lites.' M. xiii. 443. 
 
106 LIFE OF DANTCN 1792 
 
 by the affair of Jean Julien, a wretched carter whose seditious 
 cries were taken for revelations of a concealed counter-revolu- 
 tionary conspiracy. Surely, if panic begets cruelty, never was 
 a town riper for cruelty than Paris was on September 2. Nor 
 was this the worst. A Government fresh in harness and with- 
 out cohesion, in all the disorder inevitable after the overthrow of 
 an ancient regime, a Government merely provisional till the 
 elections to the Conventions could be held, and divided against 
 itself, could hardly be called a Government at all. Finally, the 
 Assembly was at war with the Commune, and it was into the 
 Commune's hands that the reality of power passed on August 10. 
 In defying the Assembly the Commune summoned to its aid 
 the grisly figure of Marat. One man and one only could have 
 dominated disorder and defied Marat, the man who was a link 
 between the Commune as its ex-deputy-procureur and the 
 Assembly as its Minister of Justice. But even Danton could 
 have succeeded only if the Assembly had thoroughly trusted 
 and loyally supported him, whereas its jealousy of him was even 
 greater than its dread of Marat. 
 
 How difficult the task would in any case have been may be 
 gathered from the anti-Dantonist historian Mortimer-Ternaux ' 
 when he describes how the law provided for the gradual ascent 
 of administrative authority from lower to higher, but failed to 
 provide the higher with means of making itself obeyed by 
 the lower, with results which even in October, when panic 
 had quieted down, Barbaroux could say were still as follows : 
 
 If this moment the tocsin sounded, what means would you 
 have of repressing disorder or preventing crime ? The Power 
 Executive? It is without any force, and may be still exposed to 
 warrants of arrest. The Department ? Its authority exists no 
 longer. The Commune? It consists for the most part of 
 men whom you ought to prosecute. . . . The public force? 
 There is none. Good citizens ? They dare not. 
 
 The same historian in his account of the Municipal Organi- 
 sation says : 2 ' As for the central power, it was nowhere to be 
 1 M.-T. i. 252. * Ibid. i. 345. 
 
1792 CAUSES OF THE MASSACRES 1O7 
 
 seen. In the constitution of the municipal as of the depart- 
 mental administration it had no means of independent action.' 
 The new gendarmerie had been created only in July 1792 * from 
 the men of July 14 (1789), who had sided with the National 
 Guard in the battle for freedom,' i.e. from the Gardes 
 Francises and the river-side populace, who had taken part in 
 all the ententes. As for the National Guard, its old battalions 
 no longer existed. 1 They were replaced by the armed Sections, 
 each quota being at the orders of each Sectional Committee. 
 Though nominally the force so composed numbered 90,000 
 men, in reality there were not more than 4,5oo. 2 Moreover, 
 as the flower of the youth of Paris went to the frontiers, those 
 4,500 were men rather desirous of disorder than of putting it 
 down. And so some looked on and some took part in the 
 massacres. 3 
 
 Such were the real causes of the September massacres 
 the absence of any authority with physical force at its disposal, 
 and fear fear of the enemy without and within, and the ina- 
 bility of the Assembly to allay that fear, owing to its own fear 
 of the Commune and of Danton. 4 As Napoleon said, they 
 were ' dans les forces des choses et dans r esprit des hommes' 
 The best defence to be made for Paris is to be found in 
 Brunswick's atrocious proclamation, which, more than anything 
 perhaps, had propagated this panic fear. The slow-blooded 
 Roland was moved to write in his Circular of August 27 :' The 
 people should recognise that, apart from its love of liberty, it 
 must expect to suffer the most cruel vengeance if it shows 
 any weakness before the wretches who have been brooding 
 over it so long.' And how did the people interpret that 
 vengeance ? 
 
 The whole of the inhabitants were to be conducted to the 
 plains of St. Denis, where the men were to be decimated and 
 
 1 M.-T. iv. 223. 2 Ibid. iv. 224. 
 
 8 G. de Cassagnac, Hist. Girondins, b. xx. sec. ii. 
 
 4 Perhaps, when it is remembered how the massacres began, another 
 cause should be mentioned viz. the intense feeling in Paris against priests. 
 Cf. M.-T. iv. 391. 
 
108 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 executed with impartiality on the spot, the most distinguished 
 patriots having been previously selected, who were to be 
 broken on the wheel ; but the women and children were to be 
 spared, except forty or fifty fishwomen, who would undergo the 
 same death as the patriots. 1 
 
 But who were patriots, who were not? In street and 
 square every man looked askance at his neighbour as he 
 passed, discovering in him an enemy. Revenge and policy 
 may have influenced the Committee of Surveillance in insti- 
 gating the people to murder, but the main cause of the 
 massacres, without which they would never have gone on for 
 nearly a week, was panic fear. 
 
 Of these massacres, of which the journalists, and among 
 them the Girondins Brissot 2 and Gorsas, were apologists, which 
 the National Guards would not stop, and which, if the actual 
 murderers were few, were witnessed by apathetic or applauding 
 crowds l unefoule innombrable de femmesettfhommesfurieux ' 3 
 Paris as a city must bear the guilt, though in a less degree 
 than the Assembly and the Commune's Committee. Guilt it 
 was, for the butchery of helpless prisoners can never be other 
 than detestable, but there has been wholesale murder with less 
 to palliate it, which has moved history to less horror. A red 
 Terror is always judged more severely than a white, 4 and a 
 general who orders that no prisoners shall be left in the rear 
 (as at Austerlitz) may recount his order without a blush ; 
 whereas Marat, who would have the volunteers leave no prisoners 
 behind in Paris, will be execrated for all time, though salus 
 tiopuli would seem as specious a defence for the one atrocity 
 
 1 Moore's Journal, i. 303. 
 
 2 Eire's Diary of a Citizen in Paris, Eng. tr. ii. 161. 
 
 3 St. M card's Mon A gome. Cf. Hue's Last Years of Louis XVI. , tr. 
 by Dallas, p. 400. M.-T. Hi. 267, 280, 320, 480, and iv. 415. The 
 Whole Truth on the Real Authors of Events of Sept. 2. Moore's Journal, 
 i. 330. Common-sense teaches that the crowd of onlookers must have 
 been large, but it has been denied. 
 
 4 Cf. S. iii. 314. 
 
1792 DANTON AND THE COMMUNE 109 
 
 as the other. 1 And whereas Marat fought with a halter round 
 his neck, Thiebault did not. But Paris was guilty and the 
 Assembly was guiltier. And why? The part played by 
 Danton during the three weeks after August 10 supplies the 
 answer. 
 
 On the loth a rebel, on the nth he was Minister of 
 Justice. Then if ever he might have been expected to breathe 
 nothing but fire and sword against men who, had they been 
 conquerors, would assuredly have dealt him short shrift. But 
 what were his first words as Minister? 'Where justice comes 
 into action popular vengeance should cease. 2 In the presence 
 of this Assembly I pledge myself to defend its members. I 
 will place myself at their head. I answer for their safety.' At 
 their head ! Alas ! that was just what the Assembly could no't 
 endure. And so justice did not come into action and popular 
 vengeance did not cease. To comprehend fully the boldness 
 as well as the moderation of Danton's words it must be 
 remembered that, as he himself said, he was Minister by title 
 of cannon-shot, and that it was the Commune which had fired 
 the guns. When its Committee read those words in the 
 Moniteur it must have felt like a runaway horse curbed in 
 full career. No doubt the speaker was from that hour 
 suspected by its darker spirits. We know, in fact, that the 
 Burleys and Mucklewraths of the day considered him a back- 
 slider. 3 But none the more credit did he gain in the Assembly, 
 which, in spite of the efforts of Cambon and Vergniaud to 
 strengthen the Executive, could not stomach his predominance. 
 Yet only Danton could have held the Commune in check ; for, 
 unless influenced by his personal ascendency, the Commune 
 
 1 This sentence or rather a reviewer's version of it, which is a very 
 different thing has been represented as an apology for the massacres ! 
 
 2 So in his Circular of August 18 he wrote : ' Que la justice des tribunaux 
 commence, et la justice du peuple cessera.' Hoinme d'Etat, p. 112. For 
 summary of the Circular, see note at the end of the chapter. 
 
 3 Cf. Michelet, b. vii. c. 6, * les vagues denonciations, dans lesquelles 
 on essayait de 1'envelopper,' and Rev. Fr. xxiv. 502. 
 
110 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 cared neither for the orders of the Executive nor the Assembly's 
 resolutions. With Robespierre as one of its most violent 
 members its negative power was immense, and, positively, it 
 was more powerful than the Assembly. The Assembly had 
 yielded to it the nomination of the commander of the National 
 Guards. It could issue warrants. It could arrest. It could 
 imprison and release from prison. If the Executive wished to 
 employ force it could do so only through its agency. And with 
 such formidable power in its hands it echoed the voice of prole- 
 tarian Paris furious, clamorous, demanding blood for blood. 
 Many, perhaps the majority of it, would have stopped short of 
 murder, and the orator Robespierre might be trusted not to 
 act l ; but the Committee, the terrible Committee of Surveil- 
 lance, * cet enrage de comite,' as Danton called it, which had 
 Marat for its sentry and the police power at its disposal, had 
 no mind to be robbed of its revenge. 
 
 What Danton could do he did. Where the people seemed 
 to have just cause for indignation, as in the Montmorin affair, 
 he appeased it by quashing the acquittal. And when furious 
 deputations came to terrorise the Assembly, and the walls 
 were placarded with denunciations of individual Deputies, his 
 hand is to be traced in the proposal of his friend and confidant 
 Delacroix to create a court-martial for trial of the Swiss 
 prisoners. 
 
 A fierce cry for revenge had rung through Paris on 
 August 10 as the dead were recognised by their relations, a 
 cry which was to grow louder and louder till September. On 
 the very evening of the loth the Insurrectionary Commune, 
 whose instincts were by no means all senseless or sanguinary, 
 resolved that an extraordinary tribunal must be created to try 
 those who had fired on the people. 2 No better expedient, 
 perhaps, if we may judge from the scenes in the Assembly at 
 the time, could have been devised for getting breathing-time in 
 which to restore order, if the Assembly had only recognised 
 
 1 Cf. his own admission, HamePs Robespierre, b. viii. sec. xix. 
 
 2 Ibid. b. viii. sec. xx. 
 
1792 ATTEMPTS TO PREVENT MASSACRE III 
 
 that desperate diseases need desperate remedies. But not till 
 the 1 5th did it vote for the tribunal, on Chabot's proposal, 
 having meanwhile infuriated the Commune by attempting to 
 restore the balance of power between it and a new Depart- 
 mental Directory. 1 And, though on the iyth Renault an- 
 nounced what was to be its composition, 2 Brissot's maladroit 
 whittling at it and the week's delay made what might, if 
 frankly adopted by the Assembly, have appeased the people 
 and made it more tolerant, seem a too tardy and too feeble an 
 instrument of vengeance, and the Commune accordingly tried 
 to render it more terrible. Delacroix's proposal on the nth 
 was induced by the threatening aspect of the people and was 
 meant to stave off an instant massacre. It was characteristic 
 of Danton, as students of his speeches soon recognise, to mask 
 a really merciful proposal under the semblance of severity. 
 Delacroix had himself gone on his knees in the Assembly to 
 induce the mob to spare certain of the Swiss, and the true 
 meaning of his proposal for a court-martial is shown by its 
 being superseded at the instance of the Commune by another 
 for the establishment of an Extraordinary Court with wider 
 powers. ' Ces crimes? grumbled Robespierre, * remontent bien 
 au dela' (i.e. the loth of August). 3 From the one court even 
 the Swiss might expect some mercy, from the other none. 4 
 
 When, again, a proposal emanating from the Commune 
 was made to deprive the prisoners of what had hitherto been 
 regarded as a prisoner's sacred right, and make the same men 
 judges and jury in one, it was the Dantonist Thuriot who, 
 along with Choudieu, withstood the proposal in an admirable 
 speech, saying that though he loved the Revolution he would 
 sooner poniard himself than see it triumph by such means. 
 And on the 22nd Delacroix, then President of the Assembly, 
 sternly reprimanded a Communal deputation headed by 
 Robespierre for daring to assume the Assembly's functions in 
 
 1 Hamel's Robespierre, b. viii. sec. xxi. 2 M. xiii. 444. 
 
 3 M. xiii. 430. 
 
 4 M.-T. iii. 29. M. xiii. 389-90. Hamel, viii. sec. xx. 
 
112 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 suspending the Departmental Directory. 1 Delacroix impru- 
 dently reminded Robespierre of this on October 29, and 
 Robespierre never forgave him. 2 
 
 On the 3ist Delacroix took an even more uncompromising 
 tone. * The formation of the Provisional Commune is,' he 
 said, ' contrary to existing laws,' and ' a rebel commune ' is a 
 1 scandal.' 
 
 The Commune, in short, wanted revenge. Danton and 
 his friends sought to regulate revenge by the action of a 
 responsible court, and to minimise it by swift execution. 
 Punishment they knew the people would exact. The quicker 
 it was the less terrible it would be. For a time they partially 
 succeeded. Delacroix as President of the Assembly answered 
 angry demands for the suppression of the Court of Orleans by 
 saying that the Assembly would never be coerced by threats or 
 danger. But then came the news of the surrender of Longwy, 
 and, like a spark to gunpowder, the cry so often fatal to 
 Frenchmen, * We are betrayed !' 'All Paris is in an uproar,' 
 said Bertrand de Molleville's landlord to him, ' about that 
 cursed little town.' Forthwith Danton proposed the domiciliary 
 visits, perhaps to some extent influenced by that cry himself, 
 but as a necessary and perfectly justifiable measure of pre- 
 caution, and none the less striving to quiet the panic, which 
 was fast becoming murderous. ' It is true,' he said on the 
 evening of August 28, ' that the enemy threatens France, but 
 all he has got as yet is Longwy. Your dangers are exaggerated. 
 The Assembly must show itself worthy of the nation.' The 
 majority of those arrested were at once released, but neither 
 arrests nor release could stay the panic which the Committee of 
 Surveillance fanned. 
 
 The rest of the Ministers wavered before the double danger. 
 At a conference of the Committee of General Defence and the 
 General Council, Servan, the War Minister, avowed that he 
 had no confidence in the armies, and that it was impossible to 
 prevent the Prussians capturing Paris. Then Danton rose, 
 1 M. xiii. 509. * M.-T. iii. no. 
 
1792 DANTON LIBELLED 113 
 
 and declaring that Paris represented France, and to abandon 
 Paris was to abandon the Revolution, he went on to say that 
 the Royalists were many, the Republicans few, that they were 
 between two fires foes without and foes within that the 
 Royalists undoubtedly met and corresponded with the Prussian 
 army, though where they met or who they were was not 
 known ; that to disconcert these projects some measures were 
 necessary, and the Royalists must be made to fear. , l These are 
 the words which his libellers, who add that the words were 
 accompanied by 'a ferocious gesture,' pretend were provocative 
 to and a defence of the September massacres. Surely it is 
 only necessary to read them to see that he was speaking, not 
 of the Royalists under lock and key who were the victims on 
 September 2, but of the Royalists at large who were reported 
 to him as being in correspondence with the enemy. Scant 
 mercy, no doubt, Danton would have shown to them. But 
 for the prisoners already in hand what Danton wanted was not 
 massacre, but speedy trial. In hours of revolution the losers 
 pay. Danton meant them to pay as he would have paid him- 
 self if he had lost, and he voiced the ever increasing impatience 
 of the people at the Assembly's inaction. The longer the 
 debt was owing the more merciless would be its liquidation. 
 This was why on August 30 he wrote to the President of the 
 Assembly 
 
 I am at a loss to conceive any reason for the delay in 
 putting into execution the two important decrees for suppres- 
 sing the Royal Commissioners of Justice and for the mode of 
 replacing them. From all sides I receive complaints and 
 protestations, and there is reason in them ; for it is essential, 
 in order to cement the dominion of Liberty and Equality, that 
 the people should be given, as representatives of the Executive 
 at the tribunals, men in whom it has confidence. For the 
 second time I appeal to the Assembly and implore it to order 
 that these decrees be carried into effect without delay. My 
 own sense of patriotism as well as the voice of the people 
 renders it imperative that my sole study shall b^ to get the 
 
 1 Thiers, Rtv. Fr. c. vi. 
 
114 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 laws enforced and to make it clear that it is no fault of mine 
 that those relative to the abolition of the old Commissioners 
 for the administration of justice and the appointment of new 
 ones have not been carried into execution. 
 
 Were these the words of a massacre-maker? A cut-throat 
 does not prelude his spring on the victim by calling vigorously 
 for the police. 
 
 Again, the Commune, 1 which had doubled its members on 
 August 12, had reorganised itself on the 25th, 2 and after much 
 squabbling with the Assembly as to its constitution during the 
 month had been dissolved by it on August 3o, 3 was, for all 
 that, the real master of Paris. And as the Assembly had its 
 Executive so the Commune had its Committee of Surveillance 
 Sergent, Panis, &c. with Marat as its assessor. Panis and 
 Sergent, though Members of the old Commune, had been 
 continued in their functions as Administrators of Police, and 
 were, in fact, the chiefs of the Committee of Surveillance. As 
 such they exercised enormous power. All Paris stood in awe 
 of them, and no man, says Mortimer-Ternaux, was great 
 enough to brave their vengeance. To drive the Commune to 
 desperation was, as Danton knew, sheer madness was to 
 embark on an internecine civil war. 4 On August 29 5 it was 
 announced in the Assembly that the enemy was close to 
 Verdun Verdun, some 120 miles, as the crow flies, from 
 Paris. On the 3oth came disquieting news from the Army of 
 the North. In the Moniteur of September i was published, 
 with no detail of horror omitted, an account of the prospective 
 doom of the inhabitants of Paris as soon as the enemy should 
 be within its gates. On the morning of September 2 
 Brunswick's summons to Verdun was read in the Assembly. 
 It would never do at this supreme crisis for Commune and 
 Assembly to come to blows. Some middle course must be 
 found at any cost. It is notable that Danton from August 29 
 kept aloof from the Commune, because, according to Michelet, 
 
 1 M.-T. iii. 1 6. 2 M.-T. iii. 148. 3 M.-T. iii. 157. 
 
 4 M.-T. iii. 208. 5 M. xiii. 571. 
 
1792 DANTON AND THE COMMUNE 11$ 
 
 he was sitting on the fence and doubtful whether Commune 
 or Assembly would get the upper hand ; because, according to 
 more virulent critics, he was, while planning the massacres 
 seeking to hide his trail. But the reasonable explanation 
 consistent with all his words and acts is that he purposely 
 marked his disapproval of * cet enrage de Comite ' 1 and ' ce petit 
 boute-feu qui gate tout'* Marat and his determination to act 
 with the Assembly, while to render his opposition to the 
 Commune as little exasperating as possible he again acted 
 through a friend. It was Thuriot who proposed to legalise the 
 as yet illegal Commune of August 10, and to legalise and call 
 into actual existence its hitherto nominal total of 288. 3 This 
 compromise tended (i) to appease the Commune in general, 
 and (2) to weaken its Committee of Surveillance by increasing 
 the strength of the Moderates, and by depriving the Committee 
 of such popularity as the Assembly's opposition to it conferred. 
 It was a well meant and able attempt, and the first result of 
 it was one dear to Danton's heart, since the Commune's 
 Council-General, which now felt itself secure, at once sum- 
 moned the citizens to enrol themselves on the Champ de 
 Mars. 4 But it was too late. The Assembly only passed 
 Thuriot's resolutions towards one o'clock on September 2, 5 
 and the Committee of Surveillance had that day reconstituted 
 itself, had prepared warrants for the arrest of Roland, Brissot 
 and thirty other Deputies, and was, it seems too probable, 
 arranging for the massacres in the prisons. 6 
 
 No doubt Danton divined what the Assembly's vacillation 
 would entail, and about one o'clock he made one last effort 
 for order, one parting protest against panic. 
 
 It is, gentlemen (he said), gratifying to the Minister of a 
 free people to have to announce to you that the country is on 
 the way to safety. Everywhere it is alert, astir, afire for battle. 
 
 1 Mme. Roland's Appel cl V Impartiale Posttritt, Pt. i. in. 
 * Prudhomme's Histoire Gtntrale &c., Anecdotes sur les factions. 
 8 M.-T. iii. 211. 4 M.-T. iii. 214. 
 
 5 Michelet, b. vii. c. v. 6 M.-T. iii. 216. 
 
 I 2 
 
Ii6 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 You know that Verdjn is not yet in the enemy's hands. You 
 know that the garrison has sworn to sacrifice the man who first 
 utters the word ' Surrender.' Our people are on the way, some 
 to the frontier, others to dig entrenchments, while the rest will 
 defend our towns with their pikes. Paris is about to second 
 these splendid efforts. The Commissioners of the Commune 
 are going by solemn proclamation to invite citizens to arm 
 themselves and march in the country's defence. This, 
 gentlemen, is a moment when you may proclaim that the 
 capital has deserved well of France. This is a moment when 
 the National Assembly is about to turn itself into a War 
 Committee. We demand your concurrence with us in directing 
 this sublime movement of the people, by nominating Commis- 
 sioners to second us in these great measures. We demand 
 punishment of death against anyone refusing to serve or 
 surrender arms. We demand that instructions shall be issued 
 to the citizens which shall give method to their movements. 
 We demand the despatch of couriers to all the departments, 
 notifying them of the decrees you will have issued. The tocsin 
 which is about to sjund is no alarm-signal, but a summons to 
 charge the foe. To conquer, gentlemen, we must dare, and 
 dare, and dare, and so save France. 1 
 
 It is hardly credible that this noble outburst of patriotism 
 should be part of the evidence alleged as incriminating 
 Danton in the massacres. The tocsin was the signal for 
 murder. The enemy were the prisoners, and so on. He 
 spoke * avec un geste exterminateurj says Lacretelle. Surely 
 only eyes purblind with malignity could so distort plain 
 language. Let anyone turn to the Moniteur and he "will see 
 that Danton's words were suggested by, and only a more 
 eloquent echo of, others just uttered in the Assembly. An 
 hour or so before he spoke the Commune had sent a 
 deputation saying the tocsin was about to be sounded, the 
 alarm-gun fired, and the people summoned on the Champ de 
 Mars to march against the enemy, and the Assembly had 
 received it with loud applause. And subsequently the 
 
 1 Danton's knowledge of English may have suggested to him Spenser's 
 * Be bolde, be bolde, and everywhere be bolde,' or Bacon's 'What first? 
 boldness : What second and third? boldness.' 
 
1792 THE DE L^AUDACE SPEECH 1 1/ 
 
 President had said * cannon was long the ultimate resource of 
 kings against peoples, now it must be that of the people 
 against kings.' We may be sure that no man who heard 
 Danton that day supposed him to be referring to any but the 
 invading armies. His appeal was supplemented by the 
 proposal of his friend Delacroix that anyone directly or 
 indirectly refusing to execute or in any way hampering the 
 orders given and measures taken by the Executive should be 
 punished by death. This proposal, no doubt emanating from 
 Danton, was meant to overawe the party of violence by 
 strengthening the Ministers. But again the Assembly 
 vacillated. It adjourned for four hours four fatal hours at 
 the end of which the golden chance was gone. The Massacres 
 had begun. In disgust, but not in despair, Danton hurried 
 from the Assembly straight to the Champ de Mars, and there 
 animated the crowd to enlist. If enlistment should divert 
 attention from the prisoners so much the better. But in any 
 case he was bent now on devoting himself to the object 
 always nearest his heart and the burden of all his speeches, 
 resistance to the foreigner. We can see now that enlistment, 
 though it did not prevent the massacres, did probably prevent 
 far worse. What if these volunteers had caught the contagion 
 of assassination ? 'La masse,' says Michelet, ' des volontaires, 
 dont personne ne savait le nombre, ri allait-elle pas se mettre en 
 mouvement) livrer bataille aux prisons, puis a FAssemblee peut- 
 etre, puts tf hotel en hotel aux aristocrates ? ' And in October 
 Dr. Moore writes : * It is more difficult at present to execute 
 any great atrocity than it was at the beginning of September, 
 because a great number of profligate and idle fellows who were 
 at that time in Paris have been sent to recruit the armies.' 
 What Dr. Moore could observe in October after the event 
 Danton had foreseen the month before. 
 
 But it is said that when once the massacres had begun it 
 was Danton's special duty as Minister of Justice to suppress 
 them. Such a notion is based on an entire misconception of 
 the functions of the Minister of Justice. It might be almost 
 
Il8 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 as sensibly contended that it was the Lord Chancellor's 
 business to suppress the Gordon riots. If there was a culprit 
 it was Roland, not Danton. It was Roland whose business it 
 was as Minister of the Interior to preserve the peace and 
 security of the citizens and to see that the police discharged 
 their functions. It is Madame Roland evil genius of the 
 Revolution, as Marie Antoinette was of the Monarchy who, 
 out of hatred of Danton more than out of love for her husband, 
 has exonerated the latter at the expense of the former. But 
 her husband's words answer her own. On September 3 he 
 wrote 
 
 Yesterday was a day on the events of which we should 
 perhaps cast a veil. I know that the people, terrible in its 
 vengeance, yet tempers it with a sort of justice, not indis- 
 criminately immolating the objects of its fury, but directing it 
 against those who have been too long spared by the sword of 
 the law, and whose immediate death is demanded by the 
 dangers of the hour. But I know that it is easy for wretched 
 traitors to abuse such an effervescence. I know that we owe it 
 to all France to declare that the Executive have been able 
 neither to foresee nor to prevent these excesses. 
 
 A more illuminating account of the massacres was never 
 penned. It was written by Roland to screen himself, and it 
 seems to have quite escaped his wife's notice that a fortiori it 
 screened Danton. But in trying to blacken his reputation she 
 unconsciously testifies to his greatness. For if Danton was the 
 culprit it could only be by virtue of his commanding 
 personality overshadowing the technical responsibility of Roland. 
 As to Roland's technical responsibility there can be no doubt. 
 When the emeute of June 20, 1792, was imminent, and 
 measures to prevent it were being discussed, the Departmental 
 Directory came into collision with the Mayor, Petion. Issuing 
 orders to the commandant of the National Guard they reported 
 the whole matter to the Minister of the Interior. The Mayor, 
 the Directory, the Minister of the Interior, were therefore 
 concerned in the matter. The Minister of Justice was not. 
 
1792 WHY THE MASSACRES WERE NOT STOPPED I 19 
 
 In point of fact, however, neither Danton nor Roland could 
 prevent the massacres. 1 It may seem almost incredible that 
 for nearly a week wholesale murders need have gone on 
 unchecked. But the incredible is the truth. You may 
 influence an Assembly by words. But when you come to 
 action you must dispose of men. Now even Roland had no 
 force at his disposal. All he could do could only be done 
 through the Commune, and the Executive of the Commune was 
 paying the murderers their wages. ' An imposing armed force,' 
 says Prudhomme, * would have been necessary and might have 
 easily been found if the Commune had not been directress of 
 the crime.' Some of the National Guards when summoned 
 would not obey. 2 Some of them went on quietly drilling 
 within earshot of the victims' cries. 3 Some of them were 
 among the murderers. Practically they were the only force 
 available, and therefore, by their inaction, they kept the ring 
 while the murders went on. Many of them, Royalists or 
 semi-Royalists before August 10, were, no doubt, doubly 
 anxious to do nothing to render their new-fledged patriotism 
 suspicious. It is to be noted, too, that the elections to the 
 Convention showed that the people were indifferent to, or 
 approved of, the massacres, for two days after the Versailles 
 massacre they elected Sergent and Panis. 
 
 As for Danton, after his famous speech on September 2, he 
 appeared no more in the Assembly till the morning sitting of 
 the yth, if indeed he appeared in person then. It is a curious 
 and at first sight a suspicious fact. But on September 7 he 
 notified to the Assembly a merciful order, which he had issued, 
 manifestly calculated to save life and repress violence, viz. that 
 any person arrested near Paris should be, in view of current 
 events, detained where arrested, i.e. not be brought to Paris. 4 
 Such and similar business would occupy some of his time, and on 
 September 3 he presided at a Council. The elections, too, 
 were in progress. But how was he mainly occupied ? We are 
 
 1 Cf. M.-T. i. 252. 2 Jourdan's Declaration. 
 
 9 Rtv. Fr. xxv. 1 8. 4 M. xiii. 644 
 
120 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 prone to think solely of the massacres on those days. But the 
 Assembly and the majority of the citizens were thinking of 
 something else too. Suppose a German army had captured 
 Bristol and were marching on London, having sworn to hand 
 it over, when taken, to fire and sword. Suppose the 
 Commander-in-Chief to have declared that London could not 
 be defended, and that all the city were a scene of wild 
 confusion, that the civic authorities and the House of Commons 
 were at loggerheads, that both bodies were sitting permanently 
 day and night, that constant councils were being held in the 
 .Guildhall and the rooms of Ministers, that arms were so scarce 
 that every gift of a gun seemed a godsend, yet that from 500 to 
 2.000 volunteers were being armed and hurried off every day 
 to the army. 1 Suppose that friends of the Germans, ready to 
 join them and praying for their success, were in the London 
 gaols, and the mob broke into the gaols and murdered their 
 inmates. Would all our Ministers think first or most of saving 
 the prisoners' lives, or would they be likely to leave their fate 
 to those ordinarily responsible and think first and most of 
 saving London ? In after-days, when the invasion-panic was 
 forgotten and the murders had grown redder and redder in men's 
 memories, people would wonder at the passive callousness of 
 those Ministers. And yet they would have had much else to 
 do which at the time seemed even more urgently imperative. 
 What Danton was doing was, with all the energy that was in 
 him, inducing the citizens to enlist, equipping them, sending 
 them off in batches to the front, and reporting to the Assembly. 
 And, what is more, he was acting by the Assembly's express 
 orders. On the 3rd Gensonne proposed and the Assembly 
 ordered that the Executive should report at once on the 
 measures taken for hurrying off troops to the camps and 
 fortifying the heights round Paris. The safety of the inhabi- 
 tants of Paris, on the other hand, was expressly left by 
 Gensonne's resolution in the hands of the Mayor and the other 
 Municipal Authorities. Danton therefore was doing his duty, 
 1 S. iii. 31. 
 
1792 PERSONAL INTERVENTION IMPOSSIBLE 121 
 
 and he did it in such a fashion that even his bitterest assail- 
 ants have been unable to refuse him some grudging gratitude. 
 
 If instead of such action, and trusting to his personal 
 influence, he had, as one historian suggests he should have 
 done, gone into the streets with a flag in his hand, he would 
 in behalf of his bitter enemies have lost a popularity essential 
 to the main work he had in hand, and without saving anyone 
 else's life might have lost his own. Lafayette's experiences 
 were too well known to him. On an occasion when the popu- 
 lar frenzy was far less, and at a time when respect for 
 authority was far greater, and Lafayette's authority especially 
 was at its height, Bertrand de Molleville relates how 'he 
 harangued, but his rhetoric was in vain. The feeble voice 
 of this popular general was everywhere drowned by that of the 
 sovereign people, who in this insurrection .... truly thought 
 that they were performing the most sacred of duties.' So it 
 would have been now. When the procureur of the Commune 
 Manuel interfered with the mob we are told that his life 
 was in danger. 1 So was the Abb Fauchet's. Prudhomme 
 says that the murderers seemed disposed to massacre anyone 
 who should show any inclination to try and stop their execu- 
 tions, and he puts into Camille Desmoulins' mouth precisely 
 the same opinion. Lamartine too says that Maillard, who of 
 all men might have been supposed to interfere with least risk, 
 endangered his own life in doing so. 2 
 
 Now, suspicion had already breathed on Danton's name. 
 A rumour spread through Paris that the Commune had 
 declared the Executive to have forfeited the confidence of the 
 nation, 3 and a violent altercation took place between him and 
 Marat 4 when the latter was going to arrest Roland Roland 
 
 1 For Manuel's conduct cf. Beaumarchais' account of his incarceration. 
 Hue's Louis XVI. (Eng. tr. 1806), p. 409. M. xiii. 603. 
 
 2 History of Girondins, xxv. sec. xiii. (Bohn). 
 
 3 Michelet, b. vii. c. v. Mme. Roland's Appel, Pt. i. 109, ' ils 
 repliquerent . . . que tous ces ministres etoient de traitres.' 
 
 4 Of whom writes Michelet: ' Massacrer la Legislative, c'est son texte 
 ordinaire.' Fr. Rev. b. vii. c. vii. 
 
122 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 not, be it noted, a Royalist nor a prisoner, but a Minister by 
 virtue of the loth of August. All, therefore, that Dan ton 
 could do he had done in his own way. If he had failed it was 
 not his fault. All now possible was to rescue individual 
 prisoners through the agency of their Sections. It is known 
 that some lives were spared by his intervention, and no personal 
 enemy of his is said to have lost his life. 1 When his enemy 
 Duport's life was threatened he, because this particular case fell 
 under his special jurisdiction as Minister of Justice, interfered 
 resolutely, and in defiance of the Commune, in his behalf. 
 Historians who cannot ignore such facts may prate about the 
 inconsistency of human nature, but a Royalist and a sharp- 
 tongued enemy, Royer-Collard, read his man better. 'This 
 Danton,' said a friend to him, * seems, however, to have had a 
 generous heart.' ' A magnanimous one, sir, that is the right 
 word,' answered Royer-Collard. 
 
 Englishmen who may be inclined to pronounce offhand 
 that if there had been a will there would have been a way to 
 coerce the Paris riots might with advantage read an account 
 from a French source of the Birmingham riots of 1791, when 
 from Thursday till Sunday night the rioters were in possession 
 of the town, burning houses and committing all sorts of 
 excesses, which continued in the surrounding country some 
 time longer. 
 
 En vain les magistrats et les principaux habitants se 
 concerterent le lendemain (Friday) pour le retour de 1'ordre, ils 
 manquaient de force armee pour en imposer a ces scelerats, 
 que leurs mesures de prudence et les exhortations ne firent 
 qu'irriter, de sorte qu'ils continuerent les memes exces pendant 
 tout le vendredi et la nuit suivante. . . . On a remarque dans 
 les chefs de cette insurrection le plus grand sang-froid, tandis 
 que les executeurs de leurs ordres etaient presque tous ivres. 2 
 
 1 This has been made a reproach to him. ' If he interfered for some 
 why not for all? if he interfered it was because he knew beforehand,' &c. 
 But everyone knew beforehand that there was danger, and interference was 
 only possible through the Sections, which would not have interfered for all. 
 He also saved L'Homond, Barthelemy, and Magerie. 
 
 2 Robinet's Danton, Emigre, p. 66. 
 
1792 CIRCULAR OF AUGUST 1 8 123 
 
 Dan fan's Circular of August 18. 
 
 In his Circular to the Tribunals, August 18, Danton wrote as a man 
 fresh from the conflict and from the combatant's point of view. He spoke 
 of the plot in the Tuileries and how it had ended in the destruction of the 
 chevaliers du poignard and the Swiss by the ' sacred and ever-memorable 
 insurrection ' of Paris, which was unanimous as France would be on 
 hearing the news ; of Mandat's treachery ending in his death ; of the 
 destruction of a libellous and hireling press ; of the provisional Commune 
 having been sanctioned by the Assembly ; of the change of Ministers and 
 the personnel of government ; of the King's imprisonment ; of his own 
 accession to office ' through breach in the Tuileries walls and by ultimate 
 argument of cannon ; ' of his steadfast adherence to his Cordeliers principles 
 of July 14, 1789; of his determination to maintain law, order, national 
 unity, the splendour of the State, the prosperity of the people and not an 
 impossible equality of property, but of right and content.' He affirms 
 that the liberty won at the taking of the Bastille might have been blood - 
 lessly consolidated in six months; that no decemvirs were needed, for 
 Mably and Rousseau < immortal beacon-lights for legislation ' with 
 Locke, Montesquieu, and Franklin, would have been ample guides ; but 
 that those in power willed otherwise, and priests and tribunals had con- 
 spired against the people. He exhorts the officials to whom it is addressed 
 to make known Lafayette's proscription, forthcoming proofs of the venality 
 of the press, the King's subsidies to traitors and projected coup a" Mat, the 
 perfidious conduct of the troops in firing on the people when fraternising 
 with them, and the consequent fight and victory, and he bids them, if they 
 have been misled by ignorance, to open their eyes now to the truth and 
 enlighten others, and to enforce the sword of the law against traitors and 
 enemies of the State. ' Let the Courts begin to enforce justice and the 
 people will cease enforcing it for themselves,' Homme dCEtat^ p. 109, 
 
124 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 1792 continued 
 
 THE SEPTEMBER MASSACRES FALSE ACCUSERS OF DANTON MADAME 
 ROLAND LAFAYETTE CASES OF MONTMORIN AND DUPORT ROLAND 
 GRANDPRF, MANDAR PRUDHOMME PELTIER ALQUIER GENE- 
 RAL CHARACTER OF ACCUSATIONS STORIES OF TAINE AND VON 
 SYBEL 
 
 How comes it, then, that on Danton's name has been heaped 
 so much obloquy ? It is because Royalists, Girondins, and 
 Robespierrists united to libel the man with whose robust 
 common-sense their narrow fanaticisms clashed. But as long 
 as he lived the last two at least were, practically, dumb. Yet 
 the question of the massacres were raised in the Assembly more 
 than once. On September 25, in the Convention, some of its 
 members and the Commune were accused specifically. Danton 
 spoke and launched out against Marat, ending with the chal- 
 lenge, ' If anyone has any accusation to bring against me let 
 him get up and make it.' l The Assembly cheered him and no 
 man took up his challenge ; but when Marat rose some of the 
 Girondins must have hoped their enemy's hour was come, for 
 Marat feared no one and never minced his words, 2 and he was 
 smarting under Danton's attack. But Marat simply avowed 
 his own responsibility and said not a word incriminating Danton. 
 Again in the following March Danton spoke. 
 
 Since they have dared to speak of those days of blood which 
 every good citizen has mourned, I, for my part, will say this : 
 that if there had been a tribunal, then none of that blood would 
 have been shed by the people who have been unmercifully re- 
 proached with it. I will say, and every eye-witness of those 
 
 1 M. xiv. 41. 2 Cf. M core's Journal, ii. 264. 
 
1792 MADAME ROLAND'S CALUMNIES 125 
 
 dreadful events will say so too, that no human power was in 
 condition to dam the tide of popular vengeance. Let us pro- 
 fit by the errors of our predecessors. 
 
 This time too the Convention applauded, and the tongues 
 of Danton's enemies and they were many and eloquent and 
 bitter tongues did not stir. The Girondins were silent be- 
 cause they had no evidence. As for the Robespierrists, the 
 only fault they had to allege against him was his * moderantisme ' 
 and weakness. His real accuser is Madame Roland. 
 
 I looked (she writes) at this repulsive and horrible face, and 
 though I felt I ought not to judge a man on hearsay and that I 
 knew nothing against him, that in such times the most respect- 
 able man must have one reputation with one party, another with 
 another, and, in short, that I ought to distrust appearances, I 
 could not associate an honest man with such a countenance.' 
 I have never seen anything so absolutely the incarnation of 
 brutal passion and astounding audacity half veiled under an 
 appearance of immense joviality and an affectation of great 
 bonhomie. Often have I pictured to myself Danton, dagger in 
 hand, hounding on with voice and gesture a band of assassins 
 more cowardly and less savage than himself. 
 
 Madame Roland was no mean portrait-painter. But whose 
 portrait are we promptest to recognise here ? Surely that of 
 the woman who had pet names Antinoiis, Nisus, Euryalus 
 for her favourites, who found relief from Danton's ugliness in 
 the faces of handsome Barbaroux, handsome Buzot, and who, 
 as the historian of the Terror records, 1 at one and the same 
 time drove her poor husband to despair and ruined the Giron- 
 din party by coldly informing him that she had ceased to love 
 him and loved another man in his place. Yet this is the woman 
 who has inoculated history with its horror of Danton, who had 
 specially offended her by saying that the nation needed Minis- 
 ters who were not in leading-strings to their wives. 2 Her 
 vivacious spite, 3 transfigured and consecrated by her courage 
 
 ' v. 146. 2 M.-T. iv. 74. 
 
 8 It is mi>ossible to forget her words on the evening of June 20, 1792, 
 when she heard how the mob had insulted the Queen : ' Qtte faurais voulti 
 voir sa longue humiliation!' Eire's Legendes Rtvolutionnaires, p. 118. 
 
126 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 on the scaffold, has been taken as gospel, and the falsehoods 
 to which she gave form in her prison seem as though they would 
 never die. 
 
 Perhaps the charge which has created most prejudice 
 against Danton is that he countersigned and sent to the Depart- 
 ments the atrocious apology for the massacres drawn up by the 
 Maratists in the Commune. It is sufficient to say of this 
 charge, which, however, thanks to Madame Roland and M. 
 Bertrand de Molleville, is still repeated, that it has long since 
 been disproved. The circular was examined, and found to have 
 no countersignature at all. What a comment it is on the 
 judgment of history on Danton that, though the most prejudi- 
 cial charge against him has been thus dissipated, its effects 
 none the less continue ! But calumny had a second string to 
 its bow. The circular, it was alleged, at any rate was forwarded 
 in Danton's official letters. Yet no proof of this is vouchsafed, 
 and even if it were true it is obvious that any clerk might have 
 been bribed to insert it surreptitiously. This is no forced 
 supposition. Roland complained to the Convention of a cir- 
 cular of the Commune being enclosed in a cover, directed and 
 franked by Petion of which Petion denied all knowledge. 1 But 
 there is other evidence than supposition. When Danton 
 attacked Marat and declared himself innocent of the blood of 
 September what a retort it would have been if Marat could 
 have said, * Why, you sent off my circular,' much more if he 
 could have said, ' Why, you countersigned my circular.' And 
 Marat would certainly have never hesitated to make the retort 
 if he had been able. In short, the secondary charge is as devoid 
 of proof as the primary one, and if proved would have but little 
 force. 
 
 Lafayette has charged Danton with getting Montmorin 
 murdered in the massacres, because Montmorin knew some- 
 thing to his discredit, 2 and some writers have confused two men 
 
 1 M.-T. iv. 284. For abuse of the Assembly's ' contre-seing ' or 'frank,' 
 cf. M. iii. 674. 
 
 2 Memoires, iv. 329. 
 
1792 CASES OF MONTMORIN AND DUPORT \2J 
 
 of the same name. The Marquis de Montmorin, massacred on 
 September 3, had been brought before the Criminal Tribunal 
 and acquitted we have seen on what grounds and Danton 
 had quashed the acquittal. But it was the Comte de Mont- 
 morin, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was supposed to 
 know things discreditable to Danton. He was denounced by 
 the Girondins, and having been, on the report of Lasource, 
 committed for trial on September 2, was massacred the same 
 day. There is nothing to show that Danton had anything 
 whatever to do with his fate. Lafayette says that Danton had 
 given Montmorin a receipt for a bribe, that Montmorin had 
 ' imprudently ' told Danton the receipt was burnt, and that 
 Danton had him massacred. He seems not to have seen that 
 with the disappearance of the receipt any special motive for 
 massacring the owner would have disappeared too. 
 
 As Danton was said to have murdered Montmorin to 
 prevent Montmorin's revelations, so to prevent Duport's 
 revelations he is said to have defied the Committee of Surveil- 
 lance and saved Duport. Proof of Duport's knowing anything 
 damaging to him there is none. But the affair is remarkable 
 as showing how resolutely Danton asserted the authority of his 
 special office when it was encroached on by the Commune. 
 Duport was arrested by order of the Commune and brought to 
 Nemours. Had he been brought to Paris he would certainly 
 have lost his life. Danton ordered the Nemours magistracy 
 to retain him. The Committee of Surveillance protested and 
 issued counter-orders. Instantly Danton sent instructions 
 that no orders but his own were to be obeyed, and 
 to this firm intervention Duport Danton's enemy owed 
 his life. 
 
 Even the monster supposed to commit murder and dispense 
 mercy from one and the same motive might have been 
 expected to earn a modicum of credit for his championship of 
 Roland, the 'old fox' whom he cordially disliked, against 
 Marat at the height of Marat's power. At all events one 
 might have expected some to be given to him by Roland's 
 
128 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 wife, even if her conjugal affection be estimated at Mortimer- 
 Ternaux's valuation as an out-of-door affair kept for public 
 display. But no, Danton was too ugly, and Madame Roland 
 notices the affair only to suggest several ugly motives, -either of 
 which she asserts may have actuated him, while she leaves her 
 readers to make their choice. What is to be said of a woman 
 who under such circumstances can only repay good offices by 
 insinuations of bad faith ? 
 
 Something like an insinuation is another of the charges 
 associated with Madame Roland of which much has been 
 made. In her Appel a rimpartiale Posterite is a note in the 
 handwriting, it is said, of her friend Bosc, but according to the 
 editor copied from her manuscript. In this note of somewhat 
 ambiguous parentage Grandpre, in fulfilment of his duty to 
 report to Roland the state of the prisons, is related to have found 
 the prisoners in a great state of apprehension, and after releasing 
 some of them to have awaited the exit of Ministers from the 
 Council held on September 2. It broke up at n P.M., and 
 Grandpre, apparently unaware that the massacres were going 
 on, spoke to Danton, who happened to come out first, and 
 told him of the alarm of the prisoners and of the inefficacy of 
 Roland's demand for an armed force, adding that it was 
 Danton's duty to do something ; upon which Danton, plagued 
 by such an untoward declaration, cried out in his bellowing 
 tone (avec sa voix beuglante), and with an appropriate gesture, 
 ' The prisoners be damned ! let them look to themselves,' and 
 passed on. To render the exact malediction ascribed to him 
 one would have to resort to English not to be found in 
 dictionaries, and no tale of him would seem to have been 
 thought complete without its introduction. But though we may 
 wonder at a lady, even from impressionist ardour, reproducing 
 it, we ought not to grudge her such verisimilitude as it may 
 lend to her narrative, since it seems to have been on the lips 
 of contemporary Frenchmen of every class, from the lowest to 
 Princes of the Blood, and, if we may trust some accounts, on 
 the lips of the son of St. Louis himself. Madame Roland in 
 
1792 STORY OF GRANDPRfi 129 
 
 fact uses it in her own letters. 1 We cannot, however, help 
 noting that to this 'perpetual' expletive is appended that 
 * appropriate gesture ' of which we have heard before. And an 
 even odder point about the story is that though the words 
 were uttered ' in the presence of twenty persons,' and persons 
 who 'shuddered at such rude language from a Minister of 
 Justice,' none of the twenty shudderers seem to have reported 
 it to Danton's enemies, though treasuring it up as specially 
 suited for a lady's ears. But * neither the Royalists nor Prud- 
 homme mention it, nor any memoirs except Madame Roland's 
 own.' 2 
 
 Again, it is clear, from Grandpre* having to report to 
 Roland, that Roland was the responsible man. If Roland 
 could not get troops how could Danton ? It is the old story 
 over again of Madame Roland paying an unintentional tribute 
 to Danton's ascendency in a dramatic fib meant to exculpate 
 her husband. But in an undramatic form, in a form not 
 shuddered at by the twenty hearers, Danton may, it is likely 
 enough, have said something which to an artist of such skill 
 as Madame Roland would have made her embellishments 
 easy. Throw in the expletive even, and what does it come to ? 
 Danton had just left the Council at which all the perils of the 
 hour, internal and external, had been anxiously discussed. He 
 was going to carry out the measures which had commended 
 themselves as wisest. And up comes this buttonholer, this 
 secretary of another Minister, his enemy, pestering him with 
 that Minister's business. And what a Minister ! With Servan, 
 the War Minister, Danton could confer, and at his trial he said 
 half his time was spent at the War Orifice. But how could* he 
 interfere with the wooden-headed Minister of the Interior? 
 The two men were antipathetic. So he may have brushed 
 Grandpr aside with a ' Go to Roland ; the prisoners are not 
 my business.' If anyone should say that this is only con- 
 jecture let him consider whether it is less probable than that 
 
 1 Letter to Bosc, July 26, 1789. Cf. Moore's Journal, ii. 18. 
 
 2 Dubost's Une Page d Histoire, p. 121. 
 
 K 
 
I3O LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 if twenty persons heard the other version the only person to 
 report it should be Madame Roland. The fact is that Madame 
 Roland's stories about Danton (written at the rate of three 
 hundred pages in twenty-two days) have the same elements of 
 improbability as Mrs. Pipchin's story of the bull, and Paul 
 Dombey's criticism is all they are worth. 
 
 As the above tale of a scene witnessed by twenty persons, 
 but recorded only by one, is believed on the authority of 
 Madame Roland, or rather on the authority of a note in 
 Madame Roland's Memoirs, so the story of another scene 
 equally public is believed on the authority of Prudhomme, or 
 rather of information imparted to Prudriomme secondhand. 
 The day is September 3 ; the scene, Danton's official 
 residence. Danton. is presiding over a meeting of the 
 Ministers, and the ogre is arrayed in a scarlet robe. 1 All 
 the Ministers are present. So is the President of the Assembly, 
 Delacroix, and the Assembly's secretaries and the presidents 
 of the forty-eight sections altogether an assemblage of over a 
 hundred persons. Terror is on every face but one, and that 
 Danton's. He alone remains firm. A number of great 
 measures are resolved upon, all of his initiative. Outside, the 
 massacres are going on. Towards the close of the meeting 
 Mandar, vice-president of the Temple Section * personnage ' 
 according to Hsimel,* l assezpeu digne de confiance'' interrogates 
 Danton. 'Are all measures for external defence settled?' 
 ' Yes.' * Let us, then, see to Paris, assemble all the troops^ 
 and dividing ourselves, all who are -here, into as many sets as 
 there are places where massacres are in progress, either by 
 haranguing the mob or getting together all the force we can, 
 stop this bloodshed.' The audience show interest, but many 
 are entirely taken up with anxiety about the great measures 
 just determined on. Then Danton gives him a cold look 
 (^froidement regardant ' here does duty for ' un geste approprie ') 
 and says, * Sieds-toi, c'etait necessaire.' 
 
 1 Histoire Generate &c. v. 124. 
 
 2 viii. sec. xxx. 
 
1792 STORY OF MAN BAR 131 
 
 The words Setait necessaire are perhaps ambiguous. It 
 couldn't be helped ' is how the English version of the Bio- 
 graphic Moderne (1811) translates them. But it is not a 
 question of words so much as of the whole story. Would such 
 a story, if the facts of it were true, have been kept secret by 
 the hundred persons, many of them Danton's foes, present at 
 the council ? Secret from Madame Roland, for instance, secret 
 from all those future members of the Convention who were so 
 soon to be challenged by Danton for evidence against him ? 
 Yet Madame Roland makes no mention of the story. And 
 those members whose own ears must, if it were true, have pro- 
 vided them with such evidence neither produced it themselves 
 nor imparted it to others. Moreover, what Danton is repre- 
 sented as frowning down Mandar for proposing was actually 
 done by the Executive of which he was a member ! It did 
 order the National Guards to be called out And both the 
 Assembly and the General Council of the Commune did send 
 commissioners to try and stop the murders. Prudhomme, in 
 short, has overshot his mark, sensation-monger that he was by 
 nature and by trade. The above is a specimen of his * Crimes 
 of the Revolution.' But the author was in other times and 
 with other manners author also of * Crimes of the Queens of 
 France,' 'Crimes of all Kings, Popes, &c.' in intention at 
 least for with advertisements of books so named he placarded 
 the walls in the days before he had found salvation. Danton 
 was a striking personality. Anything about him, especially 
 malignant gossip as grateful to large societies as to small 
 would be good copy. How much of the story Mandar con- 
 tributed, and how much Prudhomme, no man can say, but we 
 may safely affirm that, though its words are strong, it is ' a tale 
 of little meaning.' 
 
 Another of Prudhomme's stage-play scenes must be ex- 
 amined. In his journal of September 2 he had spoken of the 
 massacres as 'the justice of the people.' Times changed, and 
 with them M. Prudhomme, and he felt it necessary to explain 
 these exceedingly awkward words away. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 At 2.30 P.M. on September 2 (he accordingly writes) l 
 I called on the Minister of Justice and said, ' I come as a 
 patriot to demand the meaning of this alarm-cannon, this 
 tocsin, and the arrival in Paris of the Prussians.' ' Be tranquil,' 
 said Danton, ' old friend of liberty ; 'tis the tocsin of victory.' 
 
 * But,' said I, * they talk of cutting throats.' ' Yes,' said he ; 
 1 we were all to have our throats cut to-night the best patriots 
 first.' ' All that,' I answered, ' strikes me as rather imaginary ; 
 but pray what means for preventing such a plot are in contem- 
 plation ?' ' Means ! } said he, ' the people, warned in time, 
 wishes to give all the criminals in prison their deserts, with its 
 own hands.' ' I was horror-stricken at this speech, and just 
 then, Camille Desmoulins coming in, Danton said to him, 
 1 Here's Prudhomme come to ask me what's on foot.' Then 
 Camille said to Danton, * Oh, you haven't told him that the 
 innocent won't be confused with the guilty ? Everyone 
 claimed by his Section will get off.' I replied, ' It seems to 
 me less violent measures might be taken, &c.' To which 
 Danton, * All moderation is useless ; the people's rage is at its 
 height. It would be positively dangerous to stop it. When 
 its first rage is sated we may make it listen to reason.' ' But,' 
 said I, ' supposing the Assembly and the authorities paraded 
 Paris and harangued the people ? ' * No, no,' replied Camille, 
 ' it would be too dangerous, for the people in its first anger 
 would be capable of slaughtering its dearest friends.' I went 
 away overwhelmed with grief. As I passed the dining-room I 
 saw the wives of Camille, Danton, Fabre d'Eglantine, and 
 others at table. I didn't know what to think. Everything 
 induced me to believe that in fact it was impossible to check 
 the popular fury at the news of a plot of the aristocrats and 
 their friends. Finally I was reassured by the public manifesta- 
 tion of joy at the acquittal of certain prisoners and by the 
 spectacle of Sombreuil borne in triumph with his daughter, 
 and many similar things. I went back to my colleagues, and 
 after six hours' deliberation determined to head our column 
 
 * Justice of the People,' by which was meant solely such acts of 
 generosity. 
 
 A very pretty story this of the old friend of liberty, but one 
 
 that smacks of the footlights throughout. How sage, how 
 
 virtuous he is, how sublimely impartial in his headlines. 
 
 Readers who remember how, according to him, the French 
 
 1 Hist. Generate &c. iv. 90. 
 
1792 STORY OF PRUDHOMME 133 
 
 Revolution was an English plot, how Marat was England's 
 agent, how he had a conference with Pitt in a London eating- 
 house ( l fatt que nous attestons '), the very words of the former 
 being quoted, 1 how after the capture of the Tuileries he 
 describes the mob as cutting the soldiers up and eating broiled 
 Swiss cutlets (* des cotelettes de Sutsses passees aufeu')* &c. &c., 
 will be very slow to take literally this graphic interview of a 
 renegade trying to escape from an inconvenient past. 
 
 Danton made a stirring speech in the Assembly between 
 one and two o'clock, according to Michelet, but, as his words 
 were with regard to the tocsin * va sonner] and, according to 
 Dr. Moore, the tocsin sounded at one o'clock, probably he 
 spoke a little before that hour. Between one and two o'clock 
 he went to the Champ de Mars. 3 From the Champ de Mars 
 he went to a Council of Ministers or home. He must have 
 been worn out by such a morning's work, and if Prudhomme 
 as he asserts, saw him at half-past two must have been a 
 remarkably short time in the Champ de Mars, and taken a 
 remarkably short time over his dinner. But granting Prud- 
 homme saw him, what modicum of truth can we discern in his 
 narrative ? First, it is to be observed that Prudhomme does 
 not hint at Danton having organised the massacres, and as a 
 hostile witness his omission of the charge is very important. 
 Secondly, minus an inveterate interviewer's embellishments, 
 there is nothing incriminating in what Danton said. Prud- 
 homme knew and all Paris knew, and had for some time 
 known, just as well as Danton, that the prisoners were being 
 threatened by the people. Prudhomme knew and all Paris 
 knew that there were rumours of aristocratic plots against the 
 people. Prudhomme knew and Danton knew that these 
 alarms had reached their maximum that morning the morn- 
 ing after the capture of Verdun had been announced and the 
 morning of the day on which it was actually taken. ' The 
 
 1 Hist. Generate &c. iv. 160. 2 Ibid. iv. 68. 
 
 3 Before doing so, according to Robespierre, he himself ordered the 
 tocsin to be sounded. Rtv. Fr. xxiv. 498. 
 
134 LIFE O F DANTON 1792 
 
 alarm,' says Dr. Moore, writing that morning, ' is increased by 
 the circumstantial account ' that ' a great number of persons 
 of influence have given assurance of their being ready to join 
 the invading army.' What that army was believed to have in 
 store for Paris we know, and the threats of Brunswick almost 
 justified the credulity, of which the instant effect was to ' fill 
 many people with disquietude and increase the general alarm.' 
 Danton, some writers suggest, though without the smallest 
 proof or probability, spread such rumours. Prudhomme, 
 while posturing as a suggester of remedies, actually admits 
 coming away convinced there was nothing to be done. 
 Danton knew there was nothing to be done. He may have 
 said so then, for he said so afterwards. Or Prudhomme may 
 have invented the whole story, basing it on Danton's subse- 
 quent words and on a hint supplied by Peltier's Tableau de 
 Paris. For Peltier represents Brissot coming to Danton on 
 the 4th, as Prudhomme says he himself did on the 2nd, and 
 raising the question of the innocent being mixed up with the 
 guilty just as it was raised in Prudhomme's story. Peltier, 
 however, makes Danton, who, according to him, was sole 
 authoriser and organiser of the massacres, say that the innocent 
 would not perish, because he had made out the lists with his 
 own hands. 1 The character of Peltier's statements, ' gross as 
 a mountain, open, palpable,' would have been familiar to 
 Prudhomme, but he may have thought that with a little 
 bowdlerising and botching they would do very well for him. 
 
 Another anti-Dantonist legend is to be found in Prudhomme 
 which is conspicuous by its absence from the pages of Peltier 
 and Madame Roland, Prudhomme, however, here being rather 
 copyist or adapter than concocter. A batch of prisoners had 
 been brought to Versailles on their way to Paris treacherously, 
 as some writers maintain, and that they might be murdered 
 there. When they entered Versailles, Alquier, president of 
 the Department of Seine-et-Oise, went to Paris and demanded 
 that Danton should take prompt measures to defeat the 
 1 Tableau de Paris, ii. 379. 
 
1792 STORY OF ALQUIER 135 
 
 sinister intention of the people of Versailles. 1 'But,' said 
 Danton brusquely ( * brusquement* this time, not ' froidement* \ 
 1 what's that to you ? Mind your own business.' ' But, sir, the 
 laws make us answerable for their safety.' 'What's that to 
 you?' again said Danton. 'Well, give me an order.' 'Sir,' 
 said Danton, striding up and down, 'don't meddle in the 
 matter. The people will have revenge.' 
 
 Very dramatic, no doubt, like the other Prudhomme 
 stories, but open to similar suspicions, for neither Peltier nor 
 Madame Roland mentions it, and to the same fatal objection 
 that Roland, not Danton, was the man to whom Alquier, 
 supposing he took his ride of nine or ten miles from Versailles 
 when the peril was so imminent, and when he was deserting 
 his post to do so, should have gone. Alquier is said to have 
 had Robespierre's knack of disappearing at a crisis, and it has 
 been suggested that this story was his way of accounting for 
 his absence at the critical moment from Versailles. And it is 
 curious that Dr. Moore should have been told by a ' gentleman 
 of character ' and ' veracity ' that, coming from Paris to 
 Versailles that day, he observed nothing ' which gave him a 
 suspicion of such an event.' 2 However that may be, it seems 
 clear that instead of going to the proper Minister, Roland, to 
 go to Danton, who had neither orders to give nor troops at his 
 disposal, and who was then at war with the Commune, would have 
 been so gratuitously circuitous a way of procuring instantaneous 
 help that either the whole tale is an invention trumped up to 
 suit altered tastes or so distorted by malice, caused by some 
 rebuff administered by Danton, as to be in effect an invention. 
 
 Such a conclusion is endorsed by considerations of common 
 sense. Lamartine admits that the mayor of Versailles ' took 
 every precaution that humanity and prudence could suggest,' 
 and that the escort numbered 2,000 men with cannon. 3 Now, 
 
 1 Hist. Gentrak, iv. 182. 
 
 * Journal, i. 442. M. Thenard, in Rev. Fr. xxiv. 363, says that Alquier 
 was not at Versailles at all from September 2 to September 12. 
 8 HueVZora XVI. p. 408, Eng. tr. 
 
LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 supposing Danton to be the proper person to give orders, what 
 orders did the mayor who thoroughly did his duty need? 
 And the escort of 2,000 men with cannon if ready to do their 
 duty, were they not numerous enough ? If not, where could 
 Danton have got men in Paris who would not have sided with 
 them sooner than their prisoners ? The escort, it should be 
 added, is said to have been paid by Roland. 1 But, like a 
 sequel to some novel of Dumas, there is a sequel to this tale. 
 The day after the Versailles massacre Danton, so it runs, from 
 the windows of the Minister of Justice harangued men who 
 had come from that town, and said, ' He who thanks you does 
 so not as Minister of Justice, but as Minister of the 
 Revolution.' But who is the author of the story ? Would 
 Prudhomme have left off at Part I. ? Would not Peltier and 
 Madame Roland have rolled it as a sweet morsel on their 
 tongues ? Yet neither of them mentions it, nor the ' Two 
 Friends of Liberty,' nor any contemporary journalist. Mortimer- 
 Ternaux mentions it and seizes on it for, what is comparatively 
 rare in his history, open and violent abuse of Danton, whose 
 reputation he generally assails more insidiously. But he 
 confutes himself. Danton he describes as conniving ''dans 
 r ombre ' and * le chef secret des assassins? Well, but if that 
 were true, if he was indeed a villain working in the dark, what 
 possible motive could he have had for parading his villainy in 
 the streets when his end was achieved and he had nothing to 
 gain by it ? Many have thought Danton a knave, but no one 
 ever called him a fool, and no folly could have been more 
 gratuitous than his, if, when the reaction against the massacres 
 was beginning, he had used these words in the sense 
 attributed to them. The words themselves may have been 
 used ; but to whom, and in what sense ? Michelet says there 
 
 1 He gave Fournier what M. Aulard terms ' un certificat d'honorabilite. ' 
 Rev. Fr. xxv. 36. For this see M.-T. iii. 595, where it will be seen that 
 he speaks of Fournier's ztle et patriotism e. For the payment, see M.-T. 
 iii. 598. Cf. for a similar proceeding G. de Cassagnac's Hist, des 
 Girondins, c. xiv. 6. 
 
1792 STORY OF PELTIER 137 
 
 were 6,000 discontented, angry men in Versailles clamouring 
 for the war. Lamartine says that the men to whom Danton 
 spoke went to him to demand arms to go to the frontier. What 
 Danton said, if he said anything, amounted, no doubt, to this : 
 'As Minister of Justice I cannot thank you for yesterday's 
 work. As Minister of the Revolution I do thank you for 
 volunteering.' Not only is this a natural thing to have said 
 for how could he tell who of the crowd had actually had a 
 hand in the murders ? but it is in keeping with all Danton's 
 speeches, the keynote of which always is, Before all things, 
 " Resistance to the enemy." ' 
 
 Peltier says that Danton prepared the lists of prisoners for 
 the massacres. But, like Prudhomme, he supplies the answer 
 to his own calumnies. Danton, he says, * Jest fait dormer les 
 listes des le ay.' 1 What if he did? Though Roland was 
 responsible for the prisons it was Danton who proposed the 
 domiciliary visits, and on the next day but one the domiciliary 
 visits began, whereupon Peltier remarks, ' Voila done les 
 prisons comblees . ... les convents, les seminaires sont remplis 
 . . . . // arrivait a chaque instant de nouvelles victimes? Now, 
 besides those before in the prisons, great numbers had been 
 incarcerated since August 10, and Danton, knowing what an 
 influx of prisoners there would be on the 2Qth, may have very 
 likely sent to see what were the numbers in each prison on 
 the ayth. But this common-sense precaution is distorted by 
 Peltier into cold-blooded proscription by an assassin. There 
 is some evidence too not only that 2 ' many guilty persons paid 
 for real crimes with their lives,' but that those murdered after 
 production of the lists were condemned not because their 
 names were down in those lists, but because of the charges on 
 which they had been imprisoned. 3 
 
 1 Peltier, Tableau de Paris, ii. 224. Cf. M.-T. iii. 632, where one, 
 Chantrot, is quoted as defending himself by saying he had read out the 
 list at La Force because he was a lawyer, which seems to show that the 
 murderers did not know who were on the lists beforehand. 
 
 2 The Whole Truth on the Real Authors of Sept. 2. 
 
 3 L. Blanc, b. viii. c. ii. 
 
138 LIFE OF DANTON -1792 
 
 These, then, are the main accusations on which Danton 
 has been found guilty of the September massacres. They are 
 the accusations of enemies, of renegades, of men without 
 character. They teem with improbabilities and self-con- 
 tradictions. They are wholly inconsistent with the tone of 
 Danton's speeches and the tenour of his acts. They were not 
 made to the Assembly by those who would have been only too 
 eager to make them if they had had evidence. Their whole 
 force is cumulative, and each examined by itself is found to be 
 flimsy or absurd. They are based mostly on town talk such as 
 might make up queer chapters in the biographies of some of 
 our own contemporary political personages, did such things in 
 England now find their way into print. They are, in short, to 
 quote Danton's own protest, ' un tas de petites histoires, fort 
 bien imaginees^ et qui ne lais sent pas que d*obtenir creance dans 
 Fesprit des faibles ou de ceux qui se laissent trop aisement 
 prevenir? Finally, it is affirmed that at the trial of 
 Septembrisers in 1796 * Danton's name was not mentioned by 
 accusers, accused, or witnesses.' x 
 
 1 Gronlund's a Ira, p. 89. Cf. Robinet's Vie Pnvee, p. 192. 
 M. Aulard (Rev. Fr. xxv. 36) seems to think that Gillet did inculpate 
 Danton, whom he defends. But no ' evidence ' of Gillet's is mentioned as 
 M. Aulard infers. Cf. M.-T. iii. 391, where he alludes to a ' letter ,' but 
 without even saying if he had seen it himself. 
 
 Taine (DurancFs Translation, ii. 212) tells the following story about 
 Danton which it may be well to notice here. According to him, the 
 Due de Chartres came to Paris September 22 or 23, 1792, and went to 
 Servan's house to ask a favour. Servan refused, but Danton, who was 
 present, told the Due to come to him next day, and in conversation said to 
 him : ' You have one fault, you talk too much. You have been in Paris 
 twenty-four hours and already you have repeatedly criticised the affair ot 
 September. I know this. I have been informed of it. ' 
 
 ' But,' said the Due, ' that was a massacre, how can one help calling 
 it horrible ? ' 
 
 ' I did it,' replied Danton. * The Parisians are all so many 
 
 A river of blood had to flow between them and the emigres. You are too 
 young to understand these matters. Return to the army : it is the only 
 place nowadays for a young man like you and of your rank. You have a 
 future before you ; but, mind you keep your mouth shut.' 
 
1702 STORIES OF TAINE 139 
 
 c Keep your mouth shut ! ' Strange advice to come from a man with 
 the words ' I did it ' still on his lips, from a man, too, still practically 
 Minister, and at a moment when reaction against the massacres was 
 growing apace. And what a confidant to choose ! We who believe that 
 other people ' did it ' look at once for M. Taine's authority. ' 7^ he person ' 
 he says, ' who gives me the following had it from the King ' ! A story so 
 guaranteed, with its monstrous attribution to Danton of the belief which 
 no one, he least of all men, in Paris could have held, viz. that the Emigres 
 were popular with the Parisians, would need no further notice, except as 
 an object-lesson how a welter of gossip may be churned into history. For 
 M. Taine apparently did not know that in other fashion it is told by 
 Beaulieu. Only by him it is dated October not September, and Danton, 
 after a different exordium, gives a different reason for his deeds, viz. 'I 
 fairly terrified the mob of Paris ready to shout " Vivent les Prussiens ! " ' 
 and ends with a sort of prophecy that the Due would one day be King, 
 and with the hint of a thief not repentant that he should then expect a 
 quid pro quo. (See Eire's Diary of a Citizen of Paris, translated by 
 Villiers, i. 194.) 
 
 Side by side with the above another story of M. Taine's should be 
 noted. The eldest Lameth, an emigre v& Switzerland, came back 'about 
 a month before the King's death ' to try and save him ; ' went straight to 
 Danton's house, found him ' in a bath-tub,' told him he was a villain, but 
 not so bad as to denounce his visitor ; then had a friendly chat with him, 
 in the course of which Danton offered to save the King for the sum of a 
 million with which to buy votes, adding that though he would save him 
 he must vote for his death. So Lameth tried to get the money, but 
 Pitt (!) refused it. 
 
 ' Pitt ' in this story, ' I fairly terrified ' in the other, what familiar and 
 suggestive words ! Again we look for M. Taine's authority. ' I have 
 
 the account,' he says, ' from M who had it from Count Theodore 
 
 de Lameth's own lips' (iii. 135). 
 
 * The person,' ' M ' So M. Taine concocts history. Is the story 
 
 worth criticism? If so the criticism need be but short. Danton 'about 
 a month ' before the King's death (January 21) was in Belgium, had gone 
 there December I, and did not return to Paris till January 14. Cf., for 
 Taine's description of Danton's house at Arcis (i. 90) as ' a hovel,' the 
 photogravure of it later on. 
 
 Von Sybel (Hist, of Fr. Rev. tr. by Perry, b. iv. c. iii.) writes : * In a 
 circular to all the communes of the empire it was announced that the 
 People had destroyed a portion of the imprisoned conspirators by an act of 
 necessary justice, and all "fellow citizens, brethren, and friends" were called 
 on to imitate in their respective districts this urgent measure of political 
 salvation. To increase its weight this circular was countersigned by the 
 Minister of Justice, Danton, and distributed in numerous copies through 
 
I4O LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 his bureaux. Danton, however, was not satisfied with this ; to increase the 
 effect he added a manifesto of his own in these emphatic words : " Once 
 more, citizens, to arms ! let the whole of France bristle with pikes, 
 bayonets, cannons, and daggers ; in the towns let the blood of all; r aitors 
 be the first sacrifice offered to liberty, that when we march against the 
 enemy we may leave no one behind who can trouble us." ' Then in a foot- 
 note Von Sybel adds : ' The letter of the Committee has been frequently 
 published, but this circular of Danton is only found as far as we know in 
 Blon(jzV)dier-Langlois/ww the archives of Angers. It has escaped even 
 the industry of Ternaux.' 
 
 It is to be observed (i) that in saying with regard to the first circular 
 
 * To increase its weight this circular was countersigned by the Minister of 
 Justice, Danton,' Von Sybel says just what he says about the second viz. 
 
 * To increase the effect he added a manifesto of his own.' Now, the fact 
 that his first charge has been disproved Danton not having countersigned 
 the first circular at once throws suspicion on his second charge, and it 
 will be found that the superior industry which he vaunts consists in en- 
 grafting on a misstatement of Blordier-Langlois, which he has not examined, 
 an additional and aggravated misstatement which Blordier-Langlois does 
 not make. As, however, he used the words ' from the archives of Angers ' 
 it seemed necessary to examine those archives. I could not go there 
 myself, and only recently, through the great courtesy of M. Charavay 
 (whose name is well known in connection with valuable historical research), 
 was enabled first to obtain a facsimile of Danton's handwriting and 
 afterwards the services of a Paris expert to compare it with the documents 
 at Angers. Alas ! when he got there the cupboard was bare. There is 
 not a word in the register about a manifesto countersigned by Danton. 
 
 Before the expert's opinion of the mare's nest, of which Von Sybel so 
 complacently announces himself to be the sole discoverer and showman, 
 is read, let us see what Blordier-Langlois says, and what weight attaches 
 to it. 
 
 1. He does say that incendiary placards countersigned by Danton were 
 sent from Paris to Angers. 
 
 2. He does give as the words of placard No. 4 the words quoted by Von 
 Sybel. 
 
 3. He says that the Council-General of the Commune of Angers 
 resolved (September 24) to send the facts to the Convention, ' considerant 
 que 1'envoi s'est fait a la connaissance du ministre oil a son insu ; que dans 
 le premier cas, le citoyen Danton doit etre denonce a PAssemblee 
 Nationale ; que, dans le second, il se fait dans ses bureaux un abus bien 
 etrange du contre-seing.' 
 
 Now, as to i, it will be found from the extracts appended from the 
 register that nothing is said about the placards being countersigned by 
 Danton ; that, on the contrary, the Council, which (cf. M. xvi. 576) was 
 
1792 STORY OF VON SYBEL 14! 
 
 Girondin in its opinions, at once suspected ' un abus du contre-seing,' 
 and that Von Sybel's 'own manifesto' -countersigned by Danton,' turns 
 out to be Danton's printed official ' frank ' to envelopes, which the Council 
 had no difficulty in supposing to have been obtained a son insuS (Cf. for 
 this M.-T. iv. 284 and M. iii. 674.) 
 
 2. As to the words of No. 4, Blordier-Langlois does not say how he ob- 
 tained them, but introduces them with ' On lisaitS Taking them for granted, 
 however, they are merely a rfrhauffi of the first circular a squib after a 
 rocket, if sent early in the month and we know who were the authors 
 of the first circular. Presumably, however, the placard came just before 
 complaint was made about it. If so, it came when a strong reaction 
 against the massacres had set in, and when it would have been the height 
 of folly in Danton who was disavowing them in the Convention to send 
 such a placard or get it sent by anyone else, when he had everything to 
 lose by doing so. 
 
 3. The Council's account of the facts was forwarded to (he Convention 
 i.e., I presume, either to the Minister of the Interior or to the President. 
 Roland was Minister of the Interior. If there had been any real handle 
 against Danton would he have failed to use it ? The President was 
 Petion. If we turn to the debate of January 21, 1793, we shall see what 
 a godsend anything seriously implicating Danton would have been to him 
 even if he had hushed it up in September 1792. 
 
 On the whole, I conclude that No. 4 was a variant of the circular of 
 the Committee of Surveillance the work of some Paris journalist, a 
 Maratist who deliberately tried to make it appear to come from Danton. 
 (Query? Was Fabre cf Eglantine zk the bottom of an ' abus du contre-seing^} 
 
 I. Letter of Expert 
 
 J'ai cherche" 1 aux archives departmentales, 2 a la Bibliotheque de 
 la ville d'Angers, 3 aux archives municipales (a Ph6tel de ville), et nulle 
 part je n'ai pu trouver la trace de ces envois. Je me suis fait montrer le 
 registre des deliberations du conseil general de la commune d'Angers, et 
 a la date du 25 septembre j'ai trouve la deliberation signalee par Blordier- 
 Langlois. Ctte deliberation est precieuse pour vous parcequ'elle donne 
 le signalement de I'imprime et de 1'enveloppe qui servait a 1'envoi. II est 
 bien certain qu'elle ne pouvait etre ecrite par Danton. J'ai copie le 
 passage du registre et vous 1'adresse sous ce pli. L'enveloppe etait en 
 partie imprimee et Ton remplissait les vides a la main. II est dit que 
 1'enveloppe portait la signature du contre-seing de Danton, mais il est 
 explique que c'est la signature imprimee ; c'est ce nous appelons une griffe. 
 II n'y avait done pas d'expertise d'ecriture a faire, au cas ou j'aurais pu 
 retrouver les enveloppes, car de la description donnee par le proces-verbal, 
 il s'ensuit bien clairement que les enveloppes etaient preparees d'avance et 
 
142 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 qu'on y apposait le contre-seing imprime de Danton. II est bien certain 
 que les enveloppes ne portaient pas 1'ecriture de Danton. 
 
 II. Extracts from the Register of the Cozmcil- General 
 of the Commune of Angers 
 
 Copie du registre des deliberations du conseil general de la Commune 
 d'Angers (fragments, feuillets 47 (verso), 48 et 49) : 
 
 ( L'officier municipal president, en 1'absence du maire, a presente a 
 1'assemblee les nos. 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, et II d'un imprime portant pour 
 titre : Compte rendu au peuple souverain, de 1'imprimerie de P.-J. Duplain, 
 libraire, cour du Commerce. II a dit que ces numeros avaient ete affiches 
 en cette ville. . . . Un citoyen dans son indignation avait dechire le 
 no. 4 et lui avait apporte des fragments. 
 
 ' Le president du Club des Amis de la Liberte de cette ville lui avait remis 
 les 6 autres numeros, ainsi que 5 enveloppes dont deux, empreintes de 
 1'ancien cachet du ministre de la justice, portant une adresse ecrite a la 
 main, ainsi con^ue : Aux amis de la Constittttion a Angers et contre- 
 signee Danton et renfermant une lettre imprimee sans autre signature que 
 celle-ci : Les vrais amis de FhgaliteS 
 
 (Suit la citation d'un fragment du journal.) 
 
 * La seconde enveloppe avec cette adresse imprimee : Aux citoyens com- 
 posant la Societe des Amis de la Constitution en caracteres romains ; 
 Angers en imprime ; departement en caracteres a la main ; de Maine et 
 Loire, avec le contre-seing de Danton, en imprimeS 
 
 ' Les 3 autres enveloppes avec les memes adresses et contre-seings 
 imprimes et parfaitement semblables a celle precedemment decrite, fors le 
 cachet qui, sur ces 3 dernieres, est le nouveau du ministre de la justice.' 
 
 Suivent les citations le proces- verbal a ete envoye a la Convention. 
 
1792 143 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 1792 continued 
 
 T.HE CONVENTION SPEECH RESIGNING OFFICE GIRONDIN AGITATION 
 FOR GUARD APPARITION OF MARAT DANTON'S APPEAL FOR UNITY 
 THE ROLANDS DANTON 5 S ACCOUNTS ELECTED SECRETARY 
 DANTON'S OPINION OF MARAT APPEALS AGAIN FOR UNITY 
 AGAINST LAWYER-JUDGES AND REDUCING PAY OF PRIESTS FOR 
 RELIEVING VICTIMS OF MAISON DE SECOURS LIBERTY OF THE 
 
 PRESS. 
 
 THE Convention met on September 21. Danton had to decide 
 whether he would be Minister or Deputy. The Rolands 
 charged him with wishing to be both. He soon made up his 
 mind. Charged with seeking dictatorship, he replied by 
 resigning the Ministry of Justice. His reasons, offered when 
 the session was only an hour or two old, are best stated in his 
 own words : 
 
 Before expressing my opinion of what ought to be the 
 Assembly's first act, I ask to be allowed to resign the office 
 entrusted to me by its predecessor. I received it to the 
 accompaniment of the guns with which our fellow-citizens over- 
 threw despotism. Now, when our armies (Dumouriez\ Keller- 
 mann's) have effected a junction, when the junction of the 
 people's representatives is also effected, I am no longer bound 
 by my previous functions. I am only the mandatory of the 
 people, and as such I am going to address you. You have 
 been invited to take certain oaths (as to their motives as legisla- 
 tors), and in truth you ought, ere entering on the vast career 
 opening before you, to make to the people a solemn declaration 
 of the sentiments and principles by which you will be guided 
 in your work. There can be only one Constitution that 
 accepted, chapter and verse, by the majority of the primary 
 assemblies. That is what you must proclaim to the people. 
 
144 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 Fabulous dictatorships, imaginary triumvirates, and all such 
 bugbears invented to alarm the people would then vanish, since 
 the Constitution will contain nothing to which the people has 
 not given its assent. This you should announce first, and then 
 another thing of equal importance for liberty and order. 
 Hitherto the people have been stirred up because it was 
 necessary to rouse them against tyrants. It is necessary now 
 that the law should be as terrible to anyone who would do it 
 despite as the people have been in overthrowing tyranny ; 
 should, in order that the people may have nothing to 
 desiderate, punish all criminals. Some excellent citizens have 
 apparently entertained the idea that some fervid friends of liberty 
 might, by carrying principles to excess, injure social order. 
 Well, let us abjure all excess in this hall ; let us proclaim that 
 all property, territorial, personal, industrial, shall remain secure. 
 Finally, let us never forget that we have to re-examine, to 
 reconstruct everything, that the Declaration of Rights itself is 
 not immaculate, and must needs be revised by a people really 
 free. 1 
 
 The Convention passed a decree in accordance with what 
 the voice of detraction, * affingens vitia virtutibus vicina,' calls 
 this ' crafty speech.' To juster minds it will surely seem in the 
 highest degree unselfish, statesmanlike, and wise. And it will 
 seem even wiser and more statesmanlike to those who read the 
 frothy inanities of previous speakers of Manuel, for instance, 
 his late superior, with his l il faut voir id une assemblee de 
 philosophes occupes a preparer le bonheur du monde? An 
 assembly of philosophers, engendered by revolution and 
 baptised in blood ! Men of Manuel's stamp and they formed, 
 perhaps, the majority of his audience must have shivered as 
 under a douche of cold water at Danton's assertion of the rights 
 of law and property, and as he laid his hand upon their sacred 
 ark, the Declaration of Rights. But there were abler men who 
 should have hailed his moderation and hastened to co-operate 
 with him, but did not. Envy, hatred, and malice were in full 
 swing in Madame Roland's salon, and now that Valmy had 
 been fought and won, and those who had been for flying from 
 
 1 Condorcet, previously hostile to Danton, was won over by this speech. 
 Rev. Fr. xxv. 134. 
 
1792 GIRONDINS DEMAND A CUARD 145 
 
 Paris a month before felt safer, they thought they could afford 
 to be rid of the man who had been useful as * le levain quifait 
 lever la pdte. n On September 24 his right to vote in the 
 Assembly was disputed, because his successor in the Ministry 
 was not yet appointed. But he replied that he was only acting 
 Minister, and that as the elect of the people he could not be 
 deprived of his right to vote, and when Philippeaux proposed 
 that he should be appointed Minister provisionally he refused. 2 
 As acting Minister he used his opportunities to some purpose, 
 as we shall see hereafter, but it was as member for Paris that 
 he strove to hold the balance between unallayed passions. 3 
 
 Roland < ce vieillard rogue et morose habitue aux paper as- 
 series de fancien regime,' as Mortimer-Ternaux calls him and 
 the mouthpiece of his meddlesome wife's mischievous rhetoric, 
 on the 23rd made a report to the Assembly on the state of 
 France, in which, with side-thrusts at the Commune, he first 
 introduced what was soon the burning question of a Conven- 
 tional Guard. On the 24th Buzot took the same line with less 
 circumlocution. ' Can anyone,' he said, ' fancy our becoming 
 slaves to certain Deputies of Paris ? ' winding up with resolutions 
 which that same night the Jacobins styled the ' signal for civil 
 war.' 'Je crains le despotisme de Paris] said Lasource on the 
 25th; '// faut que Paris soit reduit a un vingt-troistime 
 tf influence, comme chacun des autres departements? A mad- 
 man's speech at such a moment, and one to bear bitter fruit. 
 Scorning generalities, Rebecqui denounced Robespierre by 
 name, and after Robespierre had demonstrated his own virtue 
 Barbaroux furiously accused the Commune, threatening it with 
 the fresh band on their way to Paris from Marseilles. 
 
 Then at the challenge of Cambon rose a figure at sight of 
 which a shudder of horror went through the Assembly, many 
 
 1 M.-T. iii. 132. 2 M. xiv. 76-77. 
 
 3 After his resignation he received several marks of honour. On 
 October 10 he was elected President of the Jacobins, on the nth Member 
 of the Constitution Committee, and on the i8th Secretary of the Conven- 
 tion. Rtv. Fr. xxv. 145. 
 
 L 
 
146 LIFE OF DAN TON 1792 
 
 of whom, perhaps, had till that day never seen Marat in the 
 flesh. Marat denied point-blank the accusation brought 
 against Robespierre, saying that both he and Danton had 
 invariably disapproved of any tribunate, triumvirate, or 
 dictatorship. ' If anyone is guilty,' he said, * I am the man,' 
 and went on to explain his policy at length. Vergniaud 
 voiced the majority's abhorrence of the speaker, and Boileau 
 produced another quotation from Marat's journal of that day. * 
 It is a celebrated passage, which should be read elsewhere than 
 in Mortimer-Ternaux, who omits essential words. A dictator- 
 ship those words certainly do not recommend. They seem 
 rather a prophecy that, unless the people compel the Assembly 
 to act, things must end in dictatorship after fifty years of 
 anarchy. 2 The Assembly, however, was as indignant then as 
 the historian afterwards, and shouted, ' A FAbbaye I ' But 
 the impenitent Marat continued his speech, ending with, * Eh 
 bien,je resterai parmi vous pour braver vos fureurs? 
 
 Such was the tone and temper of the men between whom 
 Danton essayed to hold the balance. He spoke in the debate, 
 and, it must be observed, before Marat's exculpation of him, 
 and this is what he said : 
 
 It is an auspicious day for the nation and the French 
 republic which brings us to fraternal explanations. If there 
 are criminals, if there exists any man so ill-minded as to desire 
 to dominate the people's representatives despotically, let him 
 be unmasked, let his head fall. There are rumours of 
 dictatorships and triumvirates. Such charges should not be 
 
 1 This journal was called Journal de la Republique Fran^aise, and its 
 motto was * Ut red eat miseris abeat fortuna superbis.' Bax's Marat, 
 p. 63. 
 
 2 M. xiv. 51. Even if the words ' 50 ans d^anarchie vous attendent 
 et vous n'en sortirez que par un dictateur vrai patriote et homme d'Etat ' 
 be taken, as the Assembly took them, to mean Your only means of escape 
 is a dictatorship,' they do not recommend it, but mention it as a pis alter 
 if the people do not force the Convention to hurry on with the Constitu- 
 tion. In his journal, that very day, Marat wrote ' consacrer mes lumieres a 
 la nouvclle constitution qiti sera donnee ct, la France, tel est Fobjet de ce 
 journal. ' 
 
1792 DANTON FOR UNITY 14? 
 
 vague and indefinite. Let the man who makes them give his 
 name. I would do so myself were the charge to involve the 
 death of my best friend. The members for Paris ought not to 
 be charged collectively. I shall not attempt to answer for 
 each of them. I am responsible for no one, shall speak for no 
 one but myself. I am ready to recapitulate to you all my 
 public career. For three years I did all that I felt it my duty 
 to do in the cause of liberty. As Minister I used all the vigour 
 in me to the utmost. To the Council I brought all the zeal 
 and energy of a citizen glowing with love for his country. If 
 there is anyone who can accuse me in this respect let him 
 rise and speak. There is, it is true, among the Deputies of 
 Paris a man whose opinions are to those of the Republican party 
 what those of Royou are to the aristocrats Marat. I have been 
 long, too long, charged with being the author of this man's 
 writings. I take you, President, as my witness. Your President, 
 I say, read the threatening letter addressed to me by Marat. 
 He witnessed our altercation at the Mairie. But I attribute his 
 outbreaks to the persecutions he has endured. The cellars in 
 which he has been cooped up have ulcerated his spirit. ... It 
 is very true that excellent citizens have allowed themselves to 
 carry republicanism to excess. It cannot be denied. But no 
 one has a right to accuse a group of members of the excesses of 
 the individuals who compose it. As for me, I do not belong 
 to Paris. I belong by birth to a Department towards which 
 my eyes always turn fondly, but not one of us belongs to this 
 or that Department, but to all France. Leaving personalities, 
 therefore, let us consider what is the interest of the State. A 
 strong law to put down conspiracies against liberty is undenia- 
 bly necessary. Well, let us pass such a law, a law making 
 advocacy of a triumvirate or dictatorship punishable with 
 death. But while laying firmly the foundations of equality let 
 us crush out the spirit of faction, which can only end in ruin. 
 It is alleged that there are men among us who would like to 
 dismember France. Let us dispel fantasies so monstrous by 
 making advocacy of them punishable with death. France 
 must be an indivisible whole. The men of Marseilles stretch 
 out hands to the men of Dunkirk. I demand, therefore, the 
 death-penalty against anyone attempting to destroy the unity 
 of France, and I propose that the Convention should lay down, 
 as the basis of the Government it is to constitute, unity ot 
 representation, unity of executive. Such concord is sacred. 
 To hear of it will make the Austrian tremble. Achieve it. and 
 your enemies are no more, 
 
 L 2 
 
LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 The juxtaposition of the words ' excellent citizens ' with the 
 mention of Marat has evoked animadversion less reasonable 
 than eager. Danton was a rapid speaker, and it is notable 
 that after what he said about Marat he paused, as the text of 
 the Moniteur evinces. His words, therefore, were compre- 
 hensive, and comprised all floating charges of ultra-republi- 
 canism to which he had alluded. Expediency, he may have 
 thought, dictated an amnesty for all, not excluding Marat, for 
 though he looked on him as a wolf it was as a wolf who had 
 been hunted by hounds ; but he dissociates himself from him 
 unmistakably. 
 
 He did so still more emphatically a month later, and was 
 vituperated for doing so in the ' Revolutions de Paris.' l 
 Marat himself, though he had genuine respect for Danton, 
 began to croak against him in October, 2 and Brissot, once his 
 ardent admirer, lifted up his heel against him in November. 3 
 But he would not be moved from the course he had marked 
 out for himself, For all cases where republicanism clashed 
 with reaction he had one regimen, speedy execution of stern 
 law in the people's behalf, to prevent it taking the law into its 
 own hands. * // faut faire justice au peuple pour qdil ne la 
 fasse pas lui-meme? ' Let the law be terrible and order will be 
 restored. Prove that you wish law to reign, but prove also 
 you wish the good of the people, and above all spare the blood 
 of Frenchmen* 
 
 The charge of aiming at a dictatorship having broken down, 
 .an attempt was made to discredit Danton's honesty in dealing 
 with State money. Roland, smarting under Danton's sarcasm, 
 that if he was to be invited to remain Minister provisionally 
 Madame Roland should be included in the invitation, did what 
 he could to damage him obliquely. His wife was even more 
 bitter than himself. Danton had previously been a frequent 
 visitor at her house, but before the end of August had ceased 
 
 1 No. 173 quoted by M.-T. iv. 319. 
 
 2 Bougeart, p. 155, quoting L? Ami du Peuple. 
 
 3 Bougeart, p. 172, quoting the Patriote Franfais, No. 1,205. 
 
1792 DANTON'S ACCOUNTS 149 
 
 to call there. Madame Roland suggests that Danton may 
 have guessed that she could sometimes wield a pen a very 
 significant suggestion. The coolness naturally developed when 
 he became Roland's equal as Minister, Minister by grace of 
 cannon-shot, not of Madame Roland. Henceforth she and her 
 friends were implacable. In vain Danton said he was ready 
 with his accounts and offered to meet any charge. In vain he 
 protested that the expenditure of secret-service money must 
 be, by its very nature, secret, but that he had accounted for 
 such expenditure to the Council. The Council being asked 
 whether this was true, answered in the affirmative. Madame 
 Roland says he never gave any accounts to the Convention at all, 
 and thinks she disposes of Dantbn's reply as to secret-service 
 money and the Council's ' Yes ' by saying they were afraid to 
 say < No.' 
 
 Now, the account which, according to Madame Roland, was 
 never given to the Convention exists in black and white. M. 
 Aulard discovered and has printed it in full. 1 To the same 
 author is due an exhaustive analysis of the secret-service money 
 question, used by the Rolandist picadores so tormentingly at 
 the time, and so persistently by historians ever after. On 
 November 7 the Executive Council presented to the Assembly 
 a report for the first time published by M. Aulard. According 
 to this report the Ministers of Justice and War, when both were 
 leaving office, offered to state to the Provisional Council Execu- 
 tive on October 6 how they stood with regard to the secret- 
 service fund assigned to each by the Council on September 3. 
 Both furnished details of its expenditure, along with receipts 
 and accounts which each member present had the opportunity 
 of inspecting. The report was signed by the only Ministers 
 qualified to sign Lebrun, Claviere, Monge, who added that it 
 was deliberately and in accordance with precedent that no 
 entry of this expenditure had been made in the register. This, 
 the common-sense of the matter, was expressed also by that 
 rigid economist Cambon, who, though he had found fault with 
 
 1 * Les Comptes de Danton ' in Etudes et Lemons sur la Rtv. Fr. 
 
ISO LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 Danton for unnecessarily spending money on pikes, and for 
 too lavish gratuities, said that to account for secret-service 
 money publicly was neither necessary nor required by law. M. 
 Aulard points out the insignificance of the total sum expended 
 on secret service by Danton 164,690 livres compared with 
 the amount of work rendered for it and the results obtained, and 
 this at a time when, as Danton said, he was * autant V adjutant 
 du minis tre de la guerre que ministre de la justice ',' and when the 
 Assembly's motdordre was, * N'epargnez rien ; prodiguez r argent^ 
 s'il le faut, pour ranimer la confiance et donner r impulsion a la 
 France enttire? . On the day that he used these words he was 
 elected Secretary of the Convention. But though Danton's de- 
 fence was perfect these incessant attacks injured him, made 
 people think that there must be fire where there was so much 
 smoke, and laid the foundation, no doubt, of many stinging stories. 
 Nevertheless on October 29 he again pleaded for concord. 
 Roland or rather Madame Roland had addressed to the 
 Convention a long-winded report full of severe reflections on 
 the Commune and containing a philippic against Marat. 1 The 
 question at issue was whether this report should be circulated 
 in the Departments. Passion ran high, and Robespierre was 
 singled out for special attack by Barbaroux and Louvet. Dan- 
 ton, to whom Marat's attacks on Dumouriez during the month 
 must have seemed outrageous for as president he had wel- 
 comed Dumouriez to the Jacobins began his speech by 
 lamenting the atmosphere of mistrust in which the Convention 
 was enfolded, and said it was high time it should be swept away. 
 'I own,' he went on, 'to the Convention and the whole 
 nation that for Marat as an individual I have no liking. To 
 speak frankly, I know his disposition by experience. Not only 
 is it violent and perverse, but unsocial.' He went on to disavow 
 on his own part all factions, to admit the good motives that 
 might have dictated the report, but to remind the Convention 
 how it contrasted with that of another Minister Garat and to 
 point out that 
 
 1 Which the Monit&ur strangely does not print till Nov. 10. 
 
1792 APPEAL FOR' CONCORD 151 
 
 no monarchy had ever been overthrown without some good 
 citizens suffering, and that if in the hour of passion there had 
 been vindictive revenge on the part of individuals there had 
 been marvellous achievements on the part of the community. 
 Roland had mistaken petty and miserable intrigues for vast 
 conspiracies. If there were men aspiring to a dictatorship or 
 triumvirate let them be named. There should be full and 
 complete inquiry, and the Convention should proceed against 
 anyone held guilty. To speak of a * Robespierre faction ' 
 seemed to him the language of prejudice or bad citizenship. 
 He had brought no accusation against other people, and was 
 ready to answer any brought against himself. What was 
 wanted was a thoroughgoing inquiry, so that good citizens 
 wishing only what was straightforward and above-board, both 
 as to men and affairs, might know whether there was anyone 
 it was their duty to hate, or whether they could co-operate 
 like brothers in what must assuredly be the Convention's 
 sublime career. 
 
 Many who listened thought themselves wiser men and 
 better patriots than Danton. But though in their hearts they 
 despised his counsel and would have none of his reproof, and 
 though the gulf between parties continued to grow wider and 
 wider, his personal authority was great and ubiquitous at the 
 end of the year, and on December i he was sent to Belgium 
 as Commissioner. But before his foreign policy is considered 
 some other examples of his good sense and moderation deserve 
 mention. 
 
 In an earlier chapter the disgraceful administration of justice 
 under the Monarchy has been recorded. The reform of the 
 courts coming uftder consideration, Danton spoke strongly of 
 their composition (' // y a parmi les juges actuels un grand 
 nombre deprocureurs et meme (Thuissiers '), of their monarchical 
 professions and prejudices, of their merely superficial acquain- 
 tance with law, amounting only to a jargon of chicanery, and 
 of the people's well-founded distrust of them ; but too sweeping 
 changes he thought premature, and only argued against 
 choosing judges exclusively from lawyers. The Convention 
 agreed with him, and ruled that they should be chosen from 
 all citizens, whether lawyers or not. 
 
I $2 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 Cambon proposed to reduce the pay of priests, a most 
 dangerous project at such a time. Danton pleaded for post- 
 ponement of the general question and for punishing only 
 refractory priests by diminution of salary. His ideal was that 
 there should be no State-paid Church, but he regarded it as an 
 ideal realisable only when enlightenment and knowledge had 
 penetrated the cottage. Till then to abolish salaries, and so 
 deprive the people of their priests, was, he held, cruel. 
 
 A man with whom fortune has dealt hardly, looks forward 
 to happiness hereafter. When he sees a rich man giving the 
 rein to all his tastes, gratifying all his desires, while the merest 
 necessaries perforce limit his own, then he believes, and it is a 
 consoling thought, that in a future life his joy will be multiplied 
 in proportion to his privations here. ... It is barbarous, it is 
 a crime against the nation, to rob the people of men in whom it 
 can still find some consolation. I should think, therefore, that it 
 would be useful if the Convention were to issue a manifesto 
 to persuade the people that it wishes to destroy nothing, but 
 to perfect everything, and that if it coerces fanaticism it is 
 only out of its wish for liberty of religious opinion. 
 
 All fanaticism displeased Danton. In this case he came 
 into collision with the fanaticism of the economist. And he 
 did so again on the question of a State loan to the Municipality 
 to provide for cashing small notes issued by a bankrupt com- 
 pany called the ' Maison de Secours? Cambon was theoretically 
 right. But Danton held that it was owing to the remissness 
 of the Legislative Assembly in checking jobbery that such 
 gambling had been made possible, and .that the urgent necessity 
 of the moment ought to override the general axiom that the 
 State was not called upon to take private debts on its own 
 shoulders. Whether he was in this contention right or wrong, 
 it is another instance of his invariable tendency to take into 
 consideration existing circumstances, and to prefer expediency 
 to hard-and-fast rule. 
 
 On October 15 Manuel proposed that the people's sanction 
 of a republican form of government should be obtained. 1 
 1 M. xiv. 222. 
 
1792 DANTON'S COMMON-SENSE 153 
 
 Danton's common-sense at once saw what a source of anxiety 
 such a resolution must prove ; and he replied by showing how 
 they had already agreed that the Constitution should be sub- 
 mitted to the people's approval as a whole, and how meantime 
 provisional law must necessarily be accepted as absolute. 
 
 When the liberty of the Press was under discussion Danton 
 made no speech, but he hit off the feeling of its champions by 
 an exclamation which was loudly applauded, * La liberte de la 
 presse ou la mort ! ' It was his last utterance in the Convention 
 that year. 
 
154 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 1 792 continued 
 
 DANTON'S FOREIGN POLICY INTRIGUES OF ALLIES POLICY OF 
 DUMOURIEZ TALLEYRAND PROPOSED ENGLISH ALLIANCE BEL- 
 GIUM HOLLAND BELGIAN PARTIES DUMOURIEZ IN PARIS DAN- 
 TON ON NATIONAL FRONTIERS MISSION TO BELGIUM 
 
 THE successes of Valmy and Jemmapes were, as far as they 
 were due to the French themselves, owing to the heroic spirit 
 infused into Paris by Danton's speeches, and into France by 
 the Commissioners of his choice, to the energy with which he 
 acted as ' adjutant to the Minister of War,' to his refusal to 
 quit Paris when the other Ministers were for flight, and to 
 the choice of Dumouriez as general. 1 We have now to examine 
 his foreign policy during the remainder of 1792. 
 
 Never was the field of foreign politics more beset with 
 snares and ambushes than when he entered into it. Seldom 
 has history contained a more sordid chapter than that of the 
 invasion. That invasion was, nominally, the crusade of knights 
 errant to aid an emigre chivalry in behalf of a martyr king. 2 
 In reality its motives were on a level with those of the agioteurs 
 of the ' Maison de Secours? Every kind of diplomatic trickery 
 
 1 Danton guided the diplomacy which facilitated the evacuation of 
 French territory, and it is a tradition that when, Sept. 26, Lebrun 
 threatened the King of Prussia and spoke with scorn of diplomacy, he was 
 merely talking to the gallery, having been persuaded by Danton to go on 
 diplomatising all the same. But dysentery and dissensions among them- 
 selves were the real reasons why the Allies retreated. The see-saw of 
 negotiations, for which each side alternately evinced more eagerness, is 
 described minutely by Sorel, 
 
 2 S. ii. 559- 
 
1792 AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE 1 55 
 
 was played in it. Not a player but had a card up his sleeve. 
 In comparison with other interests not one of them cared one 
 straw for Louis. 1 Russia, loudest in stimulating others to an 
 onset which she had no intention to share, coveted Poland. 2 
 Prussia coveted Poland too, 3 but was, above all, determined 
 that, whatever Austria got, she would get as much herself. 
 Austria also, with an eye on Poland, coveted Bavaria. 4 Both 
 Austria and Prussia hoped, before Valmy, to carve a slice out 
 of France. 5 England, when much against the grain she was at 
 last drawn into the struggle, fought not for the enhaloed Queen 
 of Burke's rhetoric, but for maintaining the closure of the 
 Scheldt. 6 
 
 Into an arena where so many conflicting interests were 
 pushed so unscrupulously, Danton, resolute to increase 'the 
 splendour of the Republic ' as he was to consolidate the demo- 
 cracy, came somewhat handicapped. He was no hoary 
 schemer versed in * the paperasseries of the old regime.' He 
 was young and of bourgeois origin, and his name where known 
 to kings was one of loathing. But he was not wholly 
 unequipped. He could write and speak English. He had 
 visited England. In associating with Talleyrand and Du- 
 mouriez he had acquired an insight into two of the acutest 
 brains in France. The long contest with the Court had made 
 him familiar with much intrigue. But above all he had natural 
 sagacity and knew how to profit by his own mistakes. The 
 authority he had acquired was also in his favour. He remained 
 acting Minister till October n, though he resigned on Septem- 
 ber 21 ; and such had been his ascendency that he continued 
 to influence foreign politics when he ceased to be a Minister. 7 
 For his colleagues had all been second-rate men good clerks, 
 like Servan and Lebrun ; less good, like Roland, Monge, and 
 
 1 S. ii. 557-8 and Hi. 130, 317, 318, 321. 2 S. iii. 45, 136. 
 
 8 S. iii. 131, 316, 443. 4 S. iii. 131, 315. 
 
 8 S. iii. 329, 498 9, 563. 
 
 6 S. iii. 219, 225. M. Stephens, ii. 205. Bourgoing's Hist. DipL 
 pt. ii. 299-301, 7 S. iii. 77, 247. M. xiv. 171. 
 
156 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 Claviere. Though Roland might fume and Madame Roland 
 backbite and thwart him, he was the Ministry's first man. ' // 
 n'y a ici qdun homme, fest DantonJ said Dumouriez. 1 'If I 
 were to say " No " to him he would have me hanged,' 2 said good- 
 humoured Monge. Servan, eager for the efficiency of the army 
 and the expulsion of the invaders, recognised that for these 
 objects at least he could have no abler auxiliary. When 
 Dumouriez was trying to get himself appointed Commander-in- 
 Chief it was to Danton that he wrote : ' Pesez tout cela dans 
 votre sagesse, brave Danton ; chargez-vous de mefaire des reponses 
 precises^ des out ou des non? 3 When Servan resigned, Lebrun 
 became the most important Minister, and Lebrun was the dis- 
 ciple of Dumouriez when the policy of Dumouriez and Danton 
 was in the main identical, that policy being, in brief, to detach 
 Prussia from Austria, to play off Turkey against Russia, to 
 secure the friendship, or at least the neutrality, of England, 
 Sweden, and Denmark, and to meet any other Power, hostile 
 to France, in arms. 4 To carry out this policy Dumouriez, whom 
 however Danton intended to watch, 5 was on August 18 
 appointed commander of the Army of the North in lieu of 
 Lafayette. 
 
 After August 10 there was naturally a panic among the agents 
 of foreign Courts in Paris. 6 Danton did his best to reassure 
 them, knowing that otherwise the new Government could hope 
 for no recognition from the Powers. He used the secret-service 
 money at his disposal freely, and he availed himself of the good 
 offices of Herault de Sechelles, whose birth and social connec- 
 tions made him useful, and of Talleyrand, who became the chief 
 medium of his policy in England. 7 It was Talleyrand who 
 drew up a circular to foreign Governments which was an 
 apology for the zoth of August. This he was the more eager 
 to do as his republicanism was considered anything but flawless, 
 and when, later on, such suspicions took definite shape, Danton, 
 
 1 Lenox, 165. 2 S. iii. 13. * S. iii. 65. 
 
 4 S. iii. 16. 5 S. iii. 25. 6 S. iii. 14. 
 
 7 S. iii. 14, 15, 393. 
 
1792 AGENTS IN ENGLAND 157 
 
 it is conjectured, wrote a letter defending him in the Moniteur 
 signed ' D.,' or at least got it written by a subordinate of the 
 Foreign Office named Ducher. He was, in fact, responsible 
 for Talleyrand as far as the charge of ' emigration ' went, for he 
 had signed his passport. Danton had himself, as we have seen, 
 in 1791 visited England, where he had a half-brother, who wrote 
 letters to him in English, or such English as is represented by 
 4 your much affectionate and patriote brother.' 1 He was inti- 
 mate with Thomas Paine and Thomas Christie, by whom he 
 was introduced to other politicians in sympathy with the 
 Republic. When Noel, whom Danton apparently distrusted, 
 was sent as agent of the Council to England he was joined there 
 by Danton's relative Mergez. 
 
 Noel's letters have significance as showing that he looked on 
 Danton as really the man in authority, but Danton relied most 
 on Talleyrand, who shared his views as to -England, and may 
 have imbibed them from him. For their acquaintance dated 
 from January 1791, when they were colleagues in the Depart- 
 ment of Paris; and whereas Danton went to England that 
 year, Talleyrand's first informal mission was from January to 
 March 1792. He was badly received at Court, where the 
 Queen turned her back on him, but he was welcomed at 
 Lansdowne House, 2 and his easy manners and wit did some- 
 thing to soften preconceived prejudices against the Republic. 
 He was sanguine enough to fancy he could by concert with the 
 Opposition get Pitt ousted from power, and, though Grenville's 
 frigid words were little to build on, was confident that in any 
 case England would remain neutral. 3 When he returned to 
 France in the spring of 1792 he came with two fixed ideas, that 
 an English alliance was France's best policy, and that if England 
 could not be allured she must be alarmed into such an alliance 
 by a display of the naval strength of France. Delessart, the 
 French Minister, had repelled the suggestion as more likely to 
 issue in war than alliance, but Danton's ideas were substantially 
 the same, though he and Talleyrand probably approved, as 
 1 Robinet's Danton, Emigrt, p. 5. 2 S. ii. 388, * S. ii. 392. 
 
158 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 they may have inspired, the wiser views at first entertained by 
 the Convention, of peace and non-intervention. 1 These views 
 reappeared in Talleyrand's memoir of November 25 on the 
 foreign relations of France, and in the memorable speech of 
 Danton in April 1793, in which he renounced the doctrine of 
 propaganda. But no doubt they were counsels of perfection 
 in the eyes of both men, impracticable at the end of 1792 ; 
 secondary to, though not incompatible with, the main trend 
 of their policy an English alliance ; and only so far influen- 
 cing them as to make them agree that conciliation should be 
 tried first. Talleyrand was sent back to England in Septem- 
 ber 1792 with this object. Noel was there already with in- 
 structions to offer, in return for an English loan, the cession 
 of Tobago, abstention from opposition should England seize 
 Spain's colonies in South America, and an undertaking not to 
 encourage revolution in Holland. 2 Holland, in fact, might, it 
 was hoped, along with England and Prussia, become the ally of 
 France. 3 
 
 The French agents were, like Danton, misled as to the real 
 strength and sentiments of the English Opposition. The fall 
 of the Bastille had electrified many Englishmen, as it had many 
 men in all countries of Europe. But sympathy with republi- 
 canism in England was only skin deep an affair of literary 
 sentiment and emotional poetry, as Marat had seen when he 
 said, ' Nous riavonspour nous en Angleterre que les philosophes? 4 
 It was more than counterbalanced by the royal family's impri- 
 sonment in the Temple and the King's death. It was finally 
 extinguished by the French designs on Holland. 
 
 For Delessart was right in thinking that England, if alarmed, 
 would be alarmed into war. Danton, however, did not despair 
 of an alliance in the end, and it is alleged that the Duke of 
 Bedford came to Paris to see him in April I793, 5 and that 
 when he was at Arcis he was in communication with the 
 
 1 Robinet's Danton, Emigre 1 , p. 257. 2 S. iii. 19. 
 
 3 S. iii. 82. * S. iii. 281. 
 
 5 Robinet's Danton, Emigre, 96-7. 
 
1792 HIS BELGIAN POLICY 159 
 
 Duke of York. It is, moreover, noticeable that when the 
 Convention, on November 19, 1792, proclaimed the war of 
 propaganda, he was not one of the speakers, and that as the 
 Girondins had been the prime instigators of war at all, so they 
 were mainly responsible for converting it into a war of propa- 
 ganda. 1 In September he had expressly stated how far he 
 would go in dictating their forms of government to neighbour 
 ing nations, and it was only to this point : ' Vous rtaurez pas 
 de roi. n And in October a similar indifference to sentimental 
 republicanism was shown in the speech in which he said he 
 would only respect the neutrality and independence of Geneva 
 as long as the occupation of her territory could be safely 
 avoided. 3 But when, so to speak, he determined to swallow 
 the war of propaganda he swallowed it whole, bent on utilising 
 to the uttermost even misdirected enthusiasm. 4 And therefore 
 when enlightened as to the disaffection of Belgium he still ad- 
 vocated its incorporation with France. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the French party in Belgium 
 was at first numerous and hearty, as it continued to be in the 
 great town of Liege. But the oppressive conduct of French 
 officials produced a reaction, and the majority of the people 
 awoke to the consciousness that they had hated Austria more 
 than they had loved France. Danton had good grounds for 
 crediting at first their desire for incorporation. Afterwards he 
 would feel that to quit Belgium was to hand over the French 
 party to their adversaries and leave Belgium an open door for 
 an invader of France. On the other hand it was an open door for 
 a French invader of Holland. And when the die was cast, 
 when the French were in Belgium and England would not 
 listen to the voice of the charmer, he thought that to invade 
 Holland would strike such a blow at English commerce as 
 
 1 S. ii. 360-5. Cf. Mallet du Pan's Considerations on the Nature Oj 
 the French Revolution^ Eng. tr. 1793, p. 53, where he says that he had 
 seen a letter of Brissot's in which were the words ' We must set fire to the 
 four corners of Europe : in that alone is our safety. ' 
 
 ~ 2 M. xiv. 71. * M. xiv. 231. 4 S. iii. 146. 
 
l6Q LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 might disgust England with Tory rule and bring in an 
 Opposition ready to make terms with the Republic. 1 
 
 Prenons la Hollande (he said) et Carthage est detruite, et 
 VAngleterrenepeutvivrequeparlaliberte. . . . Conqucrons la 
 Hollande, ranimons en Angle terre le parti republicain, faisons 
 marcher la France, et nous irons glorieux a la posterite. . . . 
 Que la Hollande soit envahie, que la Belgique soit libre, que la 
 commerce dAngleterre soit ruinee, que les amis de la liber te tri- 
 omphent dans cette contree. 
 
 In this policy he was at one with Dumouriez, and this was 
 why, in defiance of Marat, he supported Dumouriez to the very 
 eve of the treason which finally confounded his own plans. But 
 though at one in their main policy they were not at one as to 
 the proper treatment of Belgium. Dumouriez was actuated by 
 personal ambition. As early as August, while Servan, with of 
 .course Danton's complete assent, was peremptorily insisting on 
 his making the defence of Paris his first object, he was quoting 
 Rome's aggressive policy against Hannibal, 2 and eager to invade 
 Belgium. He was never republican, certainly never prosely- 
 tisingly republican, at heart. A Belgian republic in alliance with 
 France was sufficient for him. To intrigue for, and still more to 
 enforce, incorporation was distasteful to him, and, as he thought, 
 impolitic. He regarded matters more dispassionately, because 
 more detached from Paris influences, than Danton. Danton had 
 swallowed the war of propaganda whole. If it was to be waged 
 it should be waged thoroughly. Yet he was not for abstract equity 
 first, but for what was expedient, not for Belgium first, but for 
 France. 
 
 { J'aime tous les hommes, faime particulierement tons les 
 hommes libres, mats faime mieux les hommes libres de la France 
 que tous les hommes de funiversj were his friend Robert's words, 
 but they might have been his own. 3 
 
 Such sentiments, indefensible on high moral grounds, 
 have nevertheless been, mutatis mutandis^ those of most men 
 famous as patriots, and, as we have seen, Danton had strong 
 
 1 S. iii. 272, 2 S. iii. 26. * Robinet's Danton, Emigre, 173. 
 
1792 DANTON'S BELGIAN POLICY 161 
 
 reasons for judging the incorporation of Belgium equitable. 
 After the battle of Jemmapes (November 6) Belgium was split 
 up into three factions the aristocratic and clerical partisans 
 of Austria, those who wished for a Belgian Republic, and those 
 who wished for incorporation with France. The two latter 
 were represented respectively in the provisional municipal 
 administrations and in the Jacobin clubs. On December 4 
 Barere, President of the Assembly, in answer to a Brussels 
 deputation, said that France had made no conquest in 
 Belgium, except that of Belgian hearts, and that Belgium 
 might choose any government it liked. But Danton was not 
 then in Paris. He had been sent to Belgium on December i, 
 generally to see with his own eyes what was going on, and 
 specially to adjudicate between the Treasury agents and 
 Dumouriez. 1 His observations led him to quite other con- 
 clusions than those expressed in Barere's flowers of speech. 
 Belgium, he could not help feeling, was territory conquered 
 from Austria by the sword of Dumouriez. Only a portion of 
 the inhabitants was friendly. On the other hand, the French 
 army was in a state of utter destitution, half-starving, half- 
 clothed, without pay. Belgium, it was clear, could not receive 
 without giving. He sent off Camus to Paris to explain the 
 situation, and Cambon expounded it to the Assembly. The 
 remedy he proposed was, in brief, ' Guerre aux chateaux, paix 
 aux chaumieres ' in other words, to seize on the property of 
 the clergy and aristocracy, to suppress feudal imposts, to make 
 assignats current in the country, and to convoke the primary 
 assemblies for election of judges and provisional administrations. 
 Belgium, in short, was to be enfranchised, but with an enfran- 
 chisement wholly French. 
 
 The Assembly decreed what Cambon desired. It had 
 taken it exactly a month to discover the costliness of wars of 
 propaganda, and though its practice compared with its pro- 
 fessions appeared beggarly the decree was not so harsh as it 
 seemed. What made it intolerable to the Belgians was the 
 1 Bougeart, p. 182, 
 
 M 
 
1 62 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 swarm of commissioners sent for its execution. These were 
 not the Convention's commissioners, Danton, Camus, &C., 1 
 who had to exercise a general supervision in military matters 
 as well as civil, but thirty commissioners sent by the executive. 2 
 But - for their misconduct or fanaticism even so sweeping a 
 decree might have been tolerated. It was wrecked by the 
 way in which it was carried out, and by the squabbles of 
 Dumouriez with the Thirty and with the War Minister 
 Pache. 
 
 Dumouriez was not a man to relish interference, but when 
 he went to Paris at the end of December it was not to grumble 
 at Danton. His letter to the Convention alluded respectfully 
 to Danton's Commission, and he knew well that Danton 
 would, by whatever means, do his best to render the army 
 efficient. He had no liking, it is true, for the war of propa- 
 ganda. He had expressed disapproval of, and he would not 
 execute, the decree of December 15, which was the result of 
 Cambon's speech. 3 He had even talked of resigning his 
 command. But he had not resigned, and if only he had been 
 given means to conduct the war effectually he might have 
 remained republican. Pache, however, he could not tolerate, 
 and even when Pache was dismissed he was galled and irritated 
 in Belgium by the Thirty, most of whom, he said, were 
 'tyrannical dolts carrying out their functions like brutes.' 4 
 He had been in Paris most of January. 5 During the last 
 fortnight Danton was there too, and he and Dumouriez must 
 frequently have met. 6 Now, if Dumouriez is to be trusted, 
 everyone to whom he talked disapproved of the decree of 
 December 15, which, it should be observed, had been passed 
 in Danton's absence. 7 And it is quite possible that even 
 then Danton had misgivings as to what he nevertheless .had 
 made up his mind to swallow whole. However that may be, 
 
 1 M.-T. vi. 141. 2 M.-T. v. 77, vi. 168. 
 
 3 M. xiv. 755-6. 4 M.-T. vi. 168. 
 
 5 M.-xv,,i8. M.-T. vi. 147. 6 Bougeart, p. 183. M. xvi. 22. 
 
 7 M.-T. vi. 1 68. 
 
1792 SPEECH ON NATURAL FRONTIERS 163 
 
 the decree, introducing as it did the whole French apparatus 
 of sequestration, confiscation, assignats, &c., violently inflamed 
 party feeling in Belgium. Most of the administrations pro- 
 tested against it. The clubs gave it a rapturous welcome. 
 Dumouriez, irritated at seeing his own authority diminished by 
 the Thirty, sided against the clubs. 1 It soon became clear 
 that the real question to be decided was incorporation with 
 France, for which Spa and Theux voted at once, and Liege and 
 all its neighbourhood soon after. 2 
 
 When Dumouriez came from Paris he may have been 
 already revolving in his mind what later on issued in treason. 
 But, though still discontented, he had gained something by 
 his visit. Pache was dismissed. The army was to be re- 
 organised. He was to invade Holland. For the present, 
 therefore, he trusted to Fortune's favours and hastened to 
 Holland with the more satisfaction that so he got away from 
 the irritating Thirty. 
 
 Danton meanwhile, on January 31, had made his famous 
 speech on the natural boundaries of France, at a time, it must 
 be noted, when the allies were beginning their reconquest of 
 Belgium, and war with England and Holland had become 
 inevitable. He said he spoke in the name of all the Com- 
 missioners and in the name of all Belgian patriots in demand- 
 ing the incorporation of Belgium, reminding the Convention 
 that this had already been predetermined on December 15. 
 He appealed not to the enthusiasm of his hearers, but their 
 good sense ; for in inviting their friends in Belgium to organise 
 they had practically promised to accept any proposal for in- 
 corporation coming from them when organised, and that very 
 day there was a letter from Liege making the proposal. ' The 
 limits of France,' he continued, 'are defined by Nature.' 
 
 We shall reach them at the ocean, the Rhine, the Alps, 
 and the Pyrenees. We are threatened with kings. You have 
 thrown down the gauntlet to them, and it is the head of -a king, 
 the presage of their own doom. Let us now think only of 
 
 1 M.-T. vi. 137. 2 M.-T. vi. 138. 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 LIFE OF DANTON 1792 
 
 developing all our forces ; let us send commissioners into every 
 commune in the Republic, demanding men and arms ; let us 
 launch all France against the enemy. As for Belgium, the 
 husbandmen and workmen desire incorporation. They are 
 ripe for liberty and worthy of being united with France by 
 indissoluble bonds. 
 
 And he added that to get rid of incendiary priests and seditious 
 aristocrats they had only to decree and enforce French law. 
 
 The Assembly passed decrees in accordance with Danton's 
 advice, and he, with Delacroix, Camus, and Gossuin, after- 
 wards joined by Merlin of Douai, and Treilhard, was sent to 
 Belgium to superintend the convocation of the primary as- 
 semblies which were to vote on the subject of incorporation. 
 The primary assemblies voted in favour of it, and it has been 
 alleged that they did so under compulsion. But in view of the 
 excited state of parties it is hard to see how order could have 
 been ensured without the presence of soldiers. Nor can 
 previous petitions against incorporation be considered proof 
 that it was unpopular with the primary assemblies. It is likely 
 that Danton had good reason for his allegation that the work- 
 men generally were in its favour, and that it was pillage, 
 and sacrilege, and experience of assignats which afterwards 
 made it so unpopular. 
 
 He had still better reason for his doctrine of natural 
 frontiers elsewhere. A genuine welcome was given to the 
 French in Savoy ; l and along the Rhine, where the princelings 
 were detested, the Declaration of the Rights of Man acted, it 
 was said, like the sound of Joshua's trumpet, so that the towns 
 were taken without any fighting. 2 Even when the conquered 
 became, like the Belgians, alive to the thorns there were in the 
 trees of Liberty, they were less restive than the Belgians, as 
 having more to gain from their new masters and less of 
 national spirit to resent their sway. 3 We can, then, under- 
 stand how to Danton's practical eye his new programme 
 seemed merely a curtailment of Utopian aspirations within 
 
 J S. iii. 115. 2 S. iii. 97, 101. 3 S. iii. 176. 
 
1792 NEW PROGRAMME 165 
 
 reasonable limits. He was returning to, not receding further 
 from, the wiser policy which he was to reassert more explicitly 
 in April, and this speech came half-way between his declara- 
 tions then and those of the previous autumn. Therefore, 
 though it seems a far cry from a war of propaganda to a war 
 for natural frontiers, it seems unreasonable to represent him as 
 a cynic throwing aside the mask of moderation and resorting 
 to * the brute force which was his most congenial weapon.' 
 
1 66 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 1793 
 
 KING'S EXECUTION SPAIN'S INTERVENTION TYRANT ' GIRONDIN 
 CHARGES AGAINST DANTON HIS SPEECHES IN DEFENCE 
 
 For the sake of continuity Danton's speech of January 3 1 has 
 been noticed in the previous chapter. But he had come back 
 to Paris on January 14, and much else had happened there 
 during the fortnight of his stay. His first act was to speak and 
 vote for the King's execution. Not having had a voice in the 
 debates of the i4th, he did not take part in the voting on the 
 1 5th, but he was for no half-measures, as the Girondins were, 
 who voted for death because, like Pilate, they were willing to 
 please the people. Danton condemned him as a traitor guilty 
 of the worst form of treason alliance with foreigners against 
 his own subjects. Traitors of lower rank were executed ; why 
 not he ? * Celui qui a ete Fame de ces complots merite-t-il une 
 exception ? ' 1 Poor Louis was quite incapable of being the soul 
 of anything. The soul of the plots had been his wife. But 
 he had been privy to them. He was the rallying-point of 
 invasion and rebellion. On the iyth, even while the votes 
 which decided his doom were being counted, Vergniaud, the 
 President, announced an ill-timed letter -from the ' Minister of 
 Spain,' begging for a respite in order that he might obtain the 
 King of Spain's intervention. Vergniaud should have said 
 that the letter was from the Spanish Charge d' Affaires. 2 The 
 Assembly, it seems, understood it to come from the Spanish 
 Government. Danton at once rose, saying he was astounded 
 1 M. xv. 183. 2 M. xv. 227. 
 
1793 VOTE FOR KING'S DEATH l6/ 
 
 at the impudence of any Power daring to attempt to influence 
 their votes, and that if everyone thought as he did they would 
 for this, and this alone, vote at once for war with Spain. 
 
 * Rejetez, rejetez, citoyens, toute proposition honteuse. Point de 
 transaction avec la tyrannic? 
 
 When he had given his vote just before, * Point de trans- 
 action ' was in his mind. 
 
 / ne suis point (he said) de cettefoule cfhommes tfJitat qui 
 ignore nt qrfon ne compose point avec les tyrans, qui ignorent qd on 
 ne frappe les rois qtfa la tete, qui ignorent qu'on ne doit rien 
 attendre de ceux de T Europe que par la force de nos armes. Je 
 vote pour la mort du tyran. 
 
 Till the end of time different men will think differently of the 
 King and of his judges ; but those who condemn Danton must 
 condemn Cromwell too. 
 
 When Danton used the word ' tyrant ' it was at a time when 
 classical terms and allusions were on every man's tongue, and 
 he used it not in its now more familiar but in its original 
 sense of a sovereign over-riding law. When he spoke of 
 
 * hommes d>Etat ' he was alluding to the Girondins. While he 
 had been inspecting the condition of the Belgian army and 
 fostering the movement for incorporation had been, that is to 
 say, engrossed in matters of high policy the Rolandists were 
 charging him with amassing wealth partly by embezzlement in 
 Belgium, 1 partly by burglary in Paris. 2 And on the 2oth there 
 was a recrudescence of recriminations concerning the massacres 
 of September. Kersaint resigned his seat, saying he could no 
 longer sit with assassins like Marat, as a contrast to whom he 
 pointed to the shining light of Petion. 3 And the Girondin 
 Gensonn expressed an opinion that ' in punishing the tyrant 
 Louis ' the work had been only half done, and would be 
 
 1 Cf. Appendix B, Charge of Malversation in Belgium. 
 
 2 Vie Privte, 144. Mme. Roland charged him with robbery of the 
 Garde-Meuble. 
 
 8 M. xv. 255. 
 
1 68 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 completed only by the punishment of the 'cannibals' of 
 September. Tallien retorted by counter-insinuations. 
 
 That evening Lepelletier was assassinated for having voted 
 for the King's death, and next day Thnriot fiercely assailed 
 Petion as a hypocrite who tried to lay his own guilt at other 
 men's doors. Breard demanded domiciliary visits to discover 
 the plot of which Lepelletier was the victim. No one had 
 named Danton, but he knew what was in the air, and when 
 Petion had expressed his amazement at being supposed to be 
 anything short of immaculate he delivered one of his most 
 famous speeches. After a tribute to Lepelletier and a con- 
 temptuous remark that the previous speaker was a weak man 
 whom he had always known as such, and who ''pent Jexpliquer 
 sur mon compte comme il jugera convenablej he added 
 
 that Petion would have done better if he had been more explicit 
 about men who had shown themselves better servants of the 
 State than himself; and, with respect to the terrible massacres 
 which had been used as a party- weapon for embittering the 
 Departments against Paris, if he had stated plainly that no 
 human power could have arrested what was the fury of a 
 people, and, though terrible and lamentable, was induced by 
 remissness in bringing criminals to justice. A frank and 
 thorough examination of the whole question would have 
 checked a flood of calumny and perhaps saved the Republic 
 from worse misfortune. 
 
 Therefore (he proceeded) I challenge you who knew me as 
 Minister to say if I have not always been the advocate of con- 
 cord. I call you, Petion, you Brissot, I call all of you as my 
 witnesses, for at last I am tired of these misunderstandings : I 
 call all of you, I say, that I may no longer be misunderstood. 
 For months I have run the risk of silence, but, since I have to 
 specify others by name, I am resolved there shall be no more 
 mystery about myself. Be you yourselves my judges. Have 
 I not always shown deference to the old man now Minister of 
 the Interior? Did I not constantly warn you of, did not you 
 constantly agree with me about the fatal acerbity of his temper 
 at the time when at the centre of the Republic it was desirable, 
 it was indispensable that a man whose functions were in some 
 sort those of a Consul should yet be of a disposition to con- 
 ciliate, to appease, when violent controversies were certain to 
 
1793 ATTACK ON ROLAND 169 
 
 result from so violent a convulsion? What I said you said 
 too. But, and this is why I blame you, you did not say so 
 openly. Roland, whose good intentions I do not impugn, but 
 of whose nature I mean to speak plainly, Roland, I say, thinks 
 everyone a scoundrel and an enemy of his country who is not 
 in love with his own thoughts and opinions. I call on you, 
 dear fellow citizens, on you, Lanthenas, so intimate with Roland, 
 and therefore so unimpeachable a witness, to mark what I say. 
 I demand his deposition, and I base my demand not on 
 calumny but on the judgment of his own friends. I demand 
 in the interest of the Republic that Roland cease to be 
 Minister. Consider if I am likely to say so out of revenge, I 
 appeal to you, citizens, have I ever replied to calumny? Roland, 
 I know, misconstrued me, but what I wish is the good of the 
 Republic, and not needing, I do not seek, revenge. And how 
 can you discredit me when I call Roland's closest friends as 
 witnesses ? Roland, because in a too memorable crisis he was 
 indicted, because he feared arrest, has ever since then seen 
 Paris through black spectacles. In his indiscriminate terror 
 he became incapable of discriminating at all, till in his delusions 
 he dreamt that our mighty tree of liberty, which binds together 
 the foundations of the Republic with its roots, would be over- 
 thrown. From that hour he could not restrain his rancour 
 against Paris, Paris, whose existence is inseparable from that of 
 the Republic. For Paris belongs to all the Departments, Paris 
 is the focus of all enlightenment, and every Department con- 
 tributes to it a ray. This is Roland's great error, his great 
 blunder, his great fault, that out of rancour he has helped to 
 stir up the Departments against Paris. I myself will remind 
 him of what he has used against me as an accusation. When 
 he spoke of a Departmental Guard 1 to me I said : * It is 
 repugnant to all principle, but it is a foregone conclusion, and 
 you will carry it. What then ? No sooner has it taken up its 
 abode an Paris than it will take the tone of the people, for the 
 people's sole passion is for liberty.' Well, citizens, do you 
 doubt that now ? Are not the Federes of the Departments and 
 the citizens of Paris of one mind? No man doubts it, not even 
 you, Roland's friends. Many citizens were deluded, and they 
 see it now ; but who deluded them ? I say with sorrow that it 
 was Roland. For proof you have only to turn to one of your 
 committees. It was Roland who circulated pamphlets based 
 on the muddy idea in which his own mind wallowed that Paris 
 wished to domineer over France. 
 
 1 To safeguard the Convention. 
 
I/O LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 He went on to disapprove of domiciliary visits, but to 
 suggest the reconstitution of the Committee of General 
 Security, with extended powers, and, on suspicion of conspiracy, 
 with the right of entry to any house should two-thirds of the 
 Committee think it expedient, a characteristically sensible 
 modification of Breard's proposition. Then turning to what 
 he said were higher matters, he adjured all parties 
 
 to devote their energies to prosecution of the war with Europe 
 instead of the war among themselves. It must be waged 
 ungrudgingly, unparsimoniously. * // faut, pour economizer 
 le sang des hommes, leurs sueurs? The soldiers were bravest of 
 the brave. Tell them to go to Vienna or drop on the road, 
 and their answer would be, ' Vienna or death.' But the army 
 must be reorganised ; nor ought they to rely on the genius of 
 any one man. The nation was greater than they were. The 
 genius of the people was the people itself. All that was 
 wanted was wisdom in its legislators and a light hand on the 
 reins of a noble nation. 
 
 Lastly he spoke of Pache circumspectly, for Pache had 
 friends among his own friends, but yet uncompromisingly, as a 
 man without initiative or that eagle eye necessary to one in so 
 terribly onerous a post as Minister of War. And he proposed 
 that someone else should divide his functions. 
 
 Dumouriez, if Lamartine may be believed, had advised the 
 Girondins to come to terms with Danton. Surely some of 
 them, even though only for a moment, must have repented of 
 not taking his advice as they listened to this speech, a damning 
 indictment if it was sincere and a masterpiece of hypocrisy if it 
 was not. 
 
1793 I7 1 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 1 793 continued 
 
 SECOND MISSION TO BELGIUM DEATH OF WIFE OUTLOOK ABROAD 
 SPEECHES ON MARCH 8, IO, AND 1 1 RESPECT FOR PROPERTY 
 DEBTORS RIOTS IN PARIS DANTON DEFENDS DUMOURIEZ AND 
 DEPRECATES FACTION REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL PROPOSAL TO 
 STRENGTHEN THE EXECUTIVE DANTON ABJURES OFFICE 
 
 TILL summoned home by the death of his wife, who died on 
 the night of February 10-11, Danton was in Belgium. On 
 the 24th he was in Paris attending to the removal of the 
 official seals which had been placed on the property in his 
 house at her death. But he was in Belgium again on March 5, 
 and signed a decree that day in Brussels. 1 He had been 
 engaged at first in superintending the convocation of the 
 primary Assemblies, but when news of the reverses at Maestricht 
 and Liege arrived he and his colleagues issued orders for 
 reinforcing the army by levies of the newly incorporated 
 Belgians, and then, Delacroix and he having done all that was 
 possible on the spot, hastened back to Paris. 
 
 It was a gloomy home-coming, and not merely for personal 
 reasons. The King's death, which it had been thought might 
 obliterate factions, had in fact given them for the first time 
 free play. On the other hand it had exasperated foreign 
 Courts. All the objects of French diplomacy seemed to have 
 miscarried. The attempts persisted in to the verge of infatua- 
 tion to detach Prussia from Austria, to detach Austria from 
 Prussia, 2 to obtain the goodwill of Genoa at the expense of 
 
 1 M. xv. 665. 2 S. iii. 22, 297, and passim. 
 
172 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 Sardinia, of Sardinia at the expense of Genoa, 1 of England at 
 the expense of Spain, had failed. 2 So had the revolutionary 
 propaganda essayed in Spanish towns. 3 Belgium and the 
 Rhenish towns had been alienated by ill-usage. 4 The friend- 
 ship of Sweden and Turkey was more of a shadow than a 
 substance. The second partition of Poland had been settled 
 two days after the execution of Louis, and Prussia had 
 promised Russia to make no separate peace with France. 5 
 Dumouriez had been unable to cross the Meuse ; 6 Miranda 
 had been checked at Maestricht. Liege was reoccupied by the 
 Austrians. The armies were dispirited and disorganised, not 
 yet having felt the effects of the decree for incorporating 
 volunteers with regulars, destined afterwards to produce great 
 results/ France was at war with Austria, Prussia, England, 
 Holland, Sardinia, and Spain. And just as what Lafayette 
 might do was uppermost in men's minds at the beginning of 
 the previous August, so now at the beginning of March the 
 treason of the infinitely more dangerous soldier Dumouriez 
 threatened to give the staggering Republic its mortal blow. 
 
 Now too, as in August, when men's hearts were failing 
 them for fear, Danton remained undaunted, and for the second 
 time infused his own spirit into the nation. Fondly attached 
 to his wife, he was at first broken-hearted at her death, and is 
 even said to have exhumed her body in order to see her face 
 once more. 7 But in the public cause he suppressed his 
 
 1 S. iii. 295. 2 S. iii. 20. * S. iii. 300. 
 
 4 S. iii. 282, 339. 5 S. iii. 317. 6 S. iii. 337. 
 
 7 Robinet, Homme cTEtat, p. 133, discredits the story. 
 
 A Letter from Danton to his Wife. 
 
 ' Le courier qui m'a apporte ta lettre, ma chere Gabrielle, part dans 
 la minutte et je nai qun instant pour te faire connaitre le plaisir que jai 
 eprouve en recevant de tes nouvelles ; noublie pas de surveiller lenvoy de 
 mes arbres a Arcis et dengager ton pere a presser larrangement de mon 
 logement dans sa maisonde Sevres ; embrasse mille fois mon petit Danton 
 dis lui que son papa tachera de netre plus long temps a Dada. 
 
 'DANTON.' 
 
 For this letter I am indebted to the courtesy of MM. Charavay. 
 
1793 DANTON AND DUMOURIEZ 173 
 
 private grief, and on March 8, 10, and u he made a succession 
 of great speeches on the imminence of the danger and the 
 spirit in which it should be met. Robespierre also spoke on 
 the 8th and the loth, and his speeches are an instructive 
 contrast. In all misfortunes and reverses the great ' delator ' 
 can trace only one hand the aristocrat's and for remedy can 
 suggest nothing but suspicion, inquisition, arrest. Patriotism 
 with him is a detective's vigilance, and to be victorious the army 
 needs only to be better policed. Not that, like Marat, he 
 suspected Dumouriez. * Quant a Dumouriez^ he said, 'j'ai 
 confiance d lui? 1 And he went on to give his reasons the 
 reasons for a constable's confidence in a ticket-of- leave man 
 ' because the invasion of Holland was his own plan three 
 months ago, because he is so closely bound to the success of 
 our arms by his personal interests and his military reputation.' 
 Danton as well as Robespierre had his doubts of Dumouriez, 
 but by instinct he expresses himself more nobly, and with a 
 nobler inference. 
 
 With a general's genius Dumouriez unites the art of 
 inspiring and cheering the soldier. We have heard the army 
 even in the hour of defeat calling for him with loud cries. 
 History will judge his talents, his passions, his faults. But one 
 thing is certain that his interest is in the splendour of the 
 Republic. If we support him, if we send an army to aid him, 
 he will soon make our enemies repent of their past successes. 
 
 He said this in the first of his speeches, after some letters from 
 Dumouriez had been read in the Assembly. The necessity of 
 reinforcing the army was its keynote. 
 
 Only danger could evoke the full energy of Frenchmen 
 Recruiting was well enough, but what was wanted was 
 volunteers, the volunteers of 1792, the volunteers of Paris. 
 Paris must rekindle the blaze she lighted then, and do it at 
 once, without a moment's delay. Commissioners must visit 
 every Section that very night ( ' ce soir ' ), and call out its 
 members to enlist, to fly to the defence of Belgium, in 
 redemption of liberty and their oaths to their country. It was 
 
 1 M. xv. 674. 
 
174 LIFE OF CANTON 1793 
 
 not the generals but themselves who were to blame in having 
 promised reinforcements never sent. In 1792 the enemy had 
 begun by victories. But those victories had roused the nation. 
 So now let it be again, and let the Commissioners be 
 appointed that very hour ( a V instant'}. 
 
 The subsequent reports of the Commissioners showed how 
 efficacious had been the results of their mission. 
 
 On the Qth he proposed the release of all who were 
 imprisoned for debt, to give them the chance of volunteering. 
 After a fling at Burke, whom he called the Abbe Maury of the 
 English Parliament, he said that 
 
 the propertied class must not take fright at his proposal. 
 Whatever extravagances individuals might have countenanced 
 the nation would always respect the rights of property. But if 
 the poor were to respect the rich the rich must respect the 
 poor. Even on lower grounds the lender would not suffer by 
 his proposal. Now when he could imprison a debtor he was 
 less cautious in his loans. It was not, however, on mercenary 
 considerations but in accordance with eternal laws and the 
 rights of humanity that misfortune should not be punished as 
 a crime. 
 
 In so speaking Danton was in advance of his age. 
 
 The next day riots broke out in Paris in connection with, 1 
 if not wholly in consequence of, disastrous rumours from 
 Belgium and of alleged atrocities of the enemy in Liege. 
 Danton's speech of the loth was in effect an answer to that of 
 Robespierre, and in its first and last sentences was so undis- 
 guisedly. 
 
 What has been said to you about the general situation is 
 true, but at the present moment we are less concerned with the 
 causes of our disasters than with the remedies. When I see a 
 house ablaze I don't attend to the rascals running off with the 
 furniture : I put out the fire. What I wish to impress on you, 
 now you have heard Dumouriez' letters read, is that if you 
 would save the Republic you have not a moment to lose. The 
 plan of Dumouriez was worthy of his genius. I am bound to 
 
 1 Eire's Diary of a Citizen in Paris, i. 365. M. xv. 678-9. 
 
1793 SPEECH ANIMATING CONVENTION 175 
 
 say so, and more emphatically now than lately. He warned 
 us three months ago that the difficulties in its way would be 
 doubled if we were afraid to execute it in winter. We are to 
 blame. Let us make amends. Let us march to his aid. 
 Dumouriez only needs men. France has men in millions. 
 Our enemies are making desperate efforts. Pitt spares nothing, 
 because he has everything to lose. Our seizure of Holland 
 means the destruction of Carthage, and England to live must 
 live for liberty. Let the chains of Holland be broken by our 
 conquest, and the commercial aristocracy of England will of 
 its own accord rebel against a Government which has dragged 
 it into a war of despots against a free people. 1 Despatch your 
 commissioners, then, at once. Sustain them energetically. 
 Send them off this evening, this very night, with this message 
 to the rich. * Either the aristocracy of Europe must pay our 
 debt or you. All the people can give is its blood. It gives it 
 lavishly. Be you lavish with your miserable gold.' I brush 
 aside all party passion. The only passion dear to me is the 
 public good. In a terrible crisis, when the enemy was at our 
 gates, I said : * Your disputes are despicable. I know no 
 enemy but one. You weary me with your personal recrimina- 
 tions when you should be striving for the safety of the State. 
 I abjure you all as traitors to the country. All of you are 
 equally to blame.' And I said : * Reputation ! What do I care 
 for my reputation? Blighted be my name so France be free.' 
 Why haggle about the loss this or that party will sustain by 
 commissioners being chosen from its ranks ? Scorn such fears. 
 Think only of disseminating your energy through France. The 
 post of honour is his who proclaims to the people that the 
 terrible debt under which it staggers shall be paid by the 
 enemy or the rich. We are in cruel straits, with our dis- 
 credited currency and starving workmen. We want a radical 
 cure. On, then ! let us conquer Holland, reanimate English 
 republicans, move all France to the war, and so win imperish- 
 able glory. Be worthy of your noble destiny. No recrimina- 
 tions, no quarrels, and the country is saved. 
 
 Commissioners might procure volunteers, but Danton knew 
 well that a strong central authority was necessary if France was 
 to emerge safely from the war. Scarcely had he spoken when 
 
 1 This was Bonaparte's dream also, Maitre de Londres il se ftit elevt 
 un parti tr^s-puissant centre F Oligarchic. S. iii. 345. 
 
176 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 Stengel, one of the generals whom Robespierre had assailed, 
 was again denounced, and Danton, to shield him from a 
 fanatical prosecution for treason, proposed his being summoned 
 to appear at the bar of the Assembly. 
 
 While these perpetual accusations of treason were being 
 bandied about there was proportionate disquietude in Paris, 
 the people of which were in a mood which at any moment 
 reverses might render murderous. The establishment of an 
 extraordinary criminal tribunal without appeal had been 
 proposed on the 9th. Lanjuinais hotly denounced it. Brissot 
 said that, for his part, he preferred anarchy to such despotic 
 rule, and ironically expressed his gratitude for every moment 
 of life vouchsafed to him by his opponents. Vergniaud vowed 
 that his party would die rather than submit to an inquisition 
 worse than that of Venice. Danton had already, as we have 
 seen, spoken twice. But when the question was settled, and 
 the Assembly had just adjourned, he again sprang to the 
 tribunal, with the words, ' Summon all good citizens not to 
 move.' An orator's ascendency has seldom been more 
 strikingly illustrated than on this occasion, when everyone at 
 once resumed his seat, and amid profound silence he went on 
 
 What ! citizens, at a moment when our position is so 
 critical that if, as is possible, Miranda is beaten Dumouriez 
 must capitulate, can you separate without taking the great 
 measures absolutely necessary for our salvation ? I am aware 
 that judicial steps must be taken against the contra- 
 revolutionary party. They are boldly rearing their heads 
 again, everywhere offering provocation, though everywhere 
 they have been beaten, stupid enough to think themselves in a 
 majority because respectable citizens remain quiet at home and 
 the artisan is engaged at his work, and sure to draw on them- 
 selves the vengeance of the people if you do not snatch them 
 from it yourselves. 
 
 To understand this and what follows we have to remember 
 that there had been riots on the 8th and the 9th, and on the 
 very day this speech was delivered, the loth. Their origin 
 is somewhat obscure. They were headed by worthless men 
 
1793 RIOTS IN PARIS 177 
 
 like Varlet and Fournier, who may have been actuated by love 
 of notoriety, by hatred of Brissot, by hope of plunder ; or they 
 may have been secretly excited or abetted by Royalist agents. 1 
 What is certain is that Billaud-Varenne and Marat denounced 
 the leaders, 2 that Vergniaud and Danton and Barere and Isnard 
 alike attributed them to the aristocracy, and that the Commis- 
 sioners who, on Danton's proposition, had been sent to rouse 
 the Sections reported that the people were eager to enlist but 
 demanded a court to punish the centra-revolutionists. 3 Clearly 
 the situation closely resembled that of September. Now, as 
 then, had come the news of military disasters of the evacua- 
 tion of Aix-la-Chapelle and Liege and the raising of the siege 
 of Maestricht. The mob laid the blame on the Girondin Con- 
 vention now, as it did on the Royalist Assembly then. There 
 was a Committee of Surveillance now of Varlets and Fourniers, 
 as there had been then of Sergents and Marats. And there 
 was a growing belief in the treason of Dumouriez. Danton's 
 policy now was what it had been then. To prevent murder 
 he advocated a new Revolutionary Tribunal which should 
 prevent mob-violence by depriving it of a cry. There is a 
 story told by one of the Lanjuinais family that at this point 
 in his speech the Deputy Lanjuinais interjected the word 
 ' September,' and that it cowed Danton. 4 Nothing about this 
 is to be found in the Moniteur, which curiously does report 
 two days later a similar interruption when Marat was speaking. 5 
 We may, therefore, discard the story as that of a bragging 
 Breton. Cowed in any case Danton was not. He spoke 
 without pausing or any halt in his argument, and with scornful 
 indignation, sitting down amid a thunder of applause. And it 
 seems clear that his heart was not so much set on the Tribunal 
 which, however, he thought necessary as on vigorous prose- 
 cution of the war and strengthening the Executive by permitting 
 its members to be chosen from the Convention. He had not 
 been the first to mention the Tribunal, nor was the resolution 
 
 1 L. Blanc, ix. 2. * M. xv. 694. * M. xv. 665. 
 
 4 Eire's Diary of a Citizen in Paris, i. 351. * M. xv. 694. 
 
178 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 for it in its final shape proposed by him, but by the Girondin 
 Isnard, and it is said that when it was passed the Girondins 
 exulted openly, saying that by means of it they hoped to bring 
 the Dantons, Robespierres, and Marats to justice. 1 Probably 
 not one man in the Assembly had less thought of utilising the 
 Tribunal for personal vengeance than Danton. He seems to 
 have hoped that, by coupling together in his speech the two 
 propositions for a Tribunal and for strengthening the Execu- 
 tive, he might get them carried together. But whereas party 
 hatred or fear procured the establishment of the Tribunal, 
 party jealousy got the more salutary measure adjourned. 
 
 The ground being thus cleared, the rest of his speech be- 
 comes intelligible. 
 
 Nothing is harder to define than a political crime. But if 
 it is so easy to punish private and so hard to get at political 
 crime, surely some law other than the ordinary law is 
 necessary to overawe rebels and reach the guilty. This is a 
 point where the public safety requires wide means and 
 terrible measures. I can see no half-way between the ordinary 
 law and a revolutionary tribunal. History attests the truth of 
 this, and, since insolent reference has been made in this 
 Assembly to those sanguinary days for which every good 
 citizen has mourned, I, for my part, will aver that if a 
 tribunal had then existed the people so often cruelly 
 reproached with those days would not have imbrued them in 
 blood ; I will aver, and I shall have the assent of every witness 
 of those dreadful events, that no human power was in 
 condition to dam the flood of national vengeance. Let us 
 profit by the errors of our predecessors. Let us do what the 
 Legislative Assembly neglected to do. Let us organise a 
 tribunal, if not well for that is impossible as least badly as 
 we may, that the sword of the law may descend on the heads 
 of all our enemies. 
 
 Then he proceeded to urge the reorganisation of the 
 Ministry. 
 
 Monge, for instance, good citizen that he was, was 
 incompetent to manage the navy. What was wanted was a 
 
 1 Eire's Diary of a Citizen in Paris , i. 361. 
 
1793 REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES 179 
 
 large and instant expenditure of money and men, and to 
 ensure a proper return Ministers were wanted constantly in 
 touch with the Assembly, which would have to answer, it 
 should never forget, to the people for its blood and treasure. 
 Let the existing distress grow greater, and who would be able 
 to arrest their fury ! Let them at this very sitting organise 
 the Tribunal and reorganise the Executive, so as to render it 
 more efficient and energetic. Let them attend to his argu- 
 ments and despise the insults offered to him. Let Commis- 
 sioners set out at once to electrify the Departments, and stifle 
 all regret, at being in their absence unable to support good or 
 resist bad legislation, by the consciousness of doing their duty 
 to the country. This, then, in brief, was his programme : j 
 to-night organisation of the Tribunal, organisation of the 
 Executive ; to-morrow the nation's call to arms, to-morrow the 
 departure of the Commissioners. All France must rise, must 
 arm, must march. Holland must be invaded. Belgium must 
 be free. The commerce of England must be ruined, and her 
 party of liberty triumph. Everywhere victorious, the Republic 
 in arms must bring liberty and happiness to all peoples and 
 expiate the wrongs of the world. 
 
 Though Danton neither originated nor worded the resolu- 
 tion for a Tribunal his powerful advocacy no doubt went far to 
 secure its adoption. For this, a year later, he is said to have 
 implored pardon from God and man. If so, it was not the 
 conception but the abuse of it that he regretted, as a man 
 might repent having begotten a son grown into a monster. 
 It is hard to see what sounder counsel he could have given 
 if all the circumstances of the hour are fully weighed. And it 
 is instructive to observe that men like Vergniaud were as 
 bitterly hostile to Ministers being members as they were to the 
 Tribunal. 
 
 Quelques patriotes (said Vergniaud) dont je respecte la 
 probite ont pu dabord ne voirni danger ni violation des principes 
 dans I* election qui serait faite des ministres au sein de rAssemblee ; 
 mais bientot tons se sont reunis a r opinion contraire, et la Con- 
 vention a echappe a lunanimite au danger qui Favait menacee. 
 
 ' Whose probity I respect ' is a notable testimony to a man 
 against whom such charges were brought as were brought 
 
 N 2 
 
180 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 against Danton by the Rolandists. Vergniaud, indeed, of 
 whom Madame Roland wrote t je riaime pas VergniaudJ was 
 more like Danton in subordinating faction to patriotism than 
 most of his party. But blind jealousies influenced him 
 here. Danton knew he had little chance of getting his wish 
 carried out, and after the failure of his adroit attempt to get it 
 passed on the loth he was careful, when he returned to the 
 subject on the nth, to say that he proposed no definite resolu- 
 tion, but merely sought to elicit the Assembly's opinion. How 
 earnestly, however, and disinterestedly he strove for it may be 
 gathered from a resume of his speech that day, on the 
 resignation of the War Minister, Beurnonville. 
 
 Though I think strongly that the Convention ought to and 
 must choose Ministers anywhere, even from its own members, 
 entirely at its discretion, I at the same time swear by our 
 country that I myself will never accept office as Minister while 
 I have the honour to be member of the Convention. I say so 
 not out of false modesty, for I think I am worth as much as my 
 neighbours ; and I hope none of my colleagues will follow my 
 example, for I hold it indisputable that unless you reserve the 
 power of choosing from them at your discretion you will do the 
 State grievous injury. Surely everyone must see the necessitv 
 of greater cohesion, directer relations, closer connection 
 between the Executive which has to defend our liberty against 
 all Europe and you who have the supreme legislative power and 
 the Republic's outworks in your charge. ... If personally I 
 decline to serve, it is because I think I can act more usefully 
 as whip and spur of the Revolution, and because I retain there- 
 by the power of denouncing any Minister's incompetence or 
 bad faith. Therefore let all of us feel sure that most of us 
 nay, all have patriotic intentions. Let no personal mistrust 
 block the way, since we all aim at one object. I at least will 
 asperse no one. I am, not from conscientiousness, but constitu- 
 tionally, free from malice. Hatred is foreign to .my nature. I 
 have no need of it, and so even those who have professed to 
 hate me cannot doubt my sincerity. 
 
 Danton was wrong here. The Girondin Girey-Dupre, 
 commenting on this speech, said that everybody knew that he 
 
1793 
 
 ATTACKS ON DANTON l8l 
 
 wanted to be Minister, and that to hear him swear by his 
 country was like hearing an atheist swear by his God. Robes- 
 pierre too, wincing under the lash, retorted in the same debate, 
 ' I see no merit, I own, in declining the dangerous and difficult 
 office of Minister. I judge a refusal to result from preference 
 and interest rather than principle.' 
 
1 82 LIFE OF DAttTON 1793 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 1 7 93 con tinned 
 
 TREASON OF DUMOURIEZ DANTON DEFENDS HIS CONDUCT 
 AND DEPLORES FACTION 
 
 On March 14, less than a week after Danton, Robespierre, and 
 even Marat 1 had expressed confidence in Dumouriez, came 
 that general's famous letter of the i2th, which was practically a 
 denunciation and a defiance of the Convention. Breard, Pre- 
 sident of the Convention, took it to the Committee of General 
 Defence, which decided that Breard should not read it to the 
 Assembly, but that Danton and Delacroix should at once go 
 to Dumouriez and induce him to retract. Various historians 
 state variously the date of the day on which they set out. On 
 the iQth they reached Brussels, and on the 20th met Dumouriez 
 at Louvain in the evening. 2 They were unable to see him 
 before, because they came * during the combat,' by which words 
 Delacroix seems to refer to skirmishes after the battle of Neer- 
 winden, Dumouriez having fought and lost that battle on the 
 1 8th. We shall find Danton referring to the same thing on 
 April i, when he speaks of 'rallying the fugitives.' The con- 
 ference lasted till 3 A.M. on the 2ist. 
 
 Danton's movements afterwards have never yet been intel- 
 ligibly related. We may, however, by comparing Delacroix's 
 letters with Danton's words, conclude that this is what happened : 
 From Louvain he went to Brussels with Delacroix, and about 
 midnight that is, on the morning of the 2 2nd 3 set out for 
 
 1 M. xv. 693. 2 M.-T. vi. 304. 
 
 M.-T. vi. 323. 
 
1793 DISQUIET IN PARIS 183 
 
 Paris, and, travelling post haste, arrived there at eight or nine 
 o'clock (for he mentions both hours) at night. In speaking on 
 April i he, by mistake, said he came back on Friday, the 29th. 
 It was clearly a mistake, because he had spoken in the Conven- 
 tion on the 2yth and 28th. 
 
 He must have come back laden with anxiety. It is true 
 Dumouriez had been induced to write a short note to the 
 President of the Convention, begging him not to prejudge his 
 previous letter, but wait for further explanations. But though 
 Danton could not know what was coming he must have sus- 
 pected much, and he knew that it might go hard with himself, 
 who had so lately championed Dumouriez, if there should be a 
 rupture between the Convention and the army. And in Paris 
 there were already loud clamours for the General's recall. He 
 could only silently watch events, hoping for the best, waiting 
 to hear from Delacroix, and attending to his duties as member of 
 the Committee of General Defence, which was reorganised im- 
 mediately after news of Neerwinden, and of which he was 
 appointed a member on the 26th. 
 
 Meanwhile the Rolandists were busy circulating reports to 
 his discredit, and the outbreak in La Vendee, partly the work 
 of the priests, but mainly provoked by the conscription, had 
 assumed proportions alarming to his party, but encouraging the 
 hopes of the Royalists. On the 27th a Girondin Deputy asked 
 for lists of names recommended to Ministers by members of 
 the Assembly for appointments, saying that the practice was 
 contrary to the law. Danton rose, partly to answer this, partly 
 to urge more activity on the part of the Convention, and partly 
 to assert his own patriotism. He said that 
 
 the law was obsolete and in a revolutionary Government absurd ; 
 that he had recommended none but excellent patriots ; that 
 if he could only serve his country he cared nothing for the idle 
 gossip about himself; that what was wanted was energy, yet the 
 Tribunal was as yet a dead letter ; that the people were ready 
 to rise as one man, but only if the Convention itself ceased to 
 be supine ; that the enemies of the Revolution were at work in 
 the Departments, and that in Paris allusions to the national 
 
184 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 reverses were received with applause at the theatres ; that every 
 grown-up man should be armed with a pike at the public ex- 
 pense, and that the Convention should identify itself with the 
 people instead of keeping it at arm's length. No man with a 
 spark of the flame of liberty in his heart should stand aloof 
 from the people, who were the fathers, not the children, of the 
 Assembly. 
 
 In this speech, not one of his best, occur two of his ' all- 
 too-gigantic ' figures. 
 
 A nation in revolution is like boiling bronze regenerating 
 itself in the crucible. The Statue of Liberty is not yet 
 moulded. The metal is bubbling over. Watch the furnace, 
 or you will all be burnt. . . . Marseilles has declared itself the 
 Mountain of the Republic. It will expand, this mountain ; it 
 will roll down the rocks of liberty, and the enemies of liberty 
 will be annihilated. 
 
 It contains also two interesting bits of history. 
 
 After the loth of August it was I for there are times 
 when a man must speak of himself it was I who brought 
 the Executive Council, the Sectional Councils, the Munici- 
 pality, the Commune, the Legislative Committees to meet 
 amicably at the Mairie. We were a numerous assembly. We 
 concerted the measures which were indispensable, and they 
 were laid before the people by the Commissioners of Sections. 
 The people applauded and we supported them, and the result 
 was victory. 
 
 Roland wrote to Dumouriez, who himself showed Delacroix 
 and me the letter, ' You must league with us in crushing this 
 Parisian faction, especially this Danton.' 
 
 Roland next day wrote to deny that he had ' formed any 
 kind of league which he durst not avow/ l and to demand 
 proofs, but the form of his denial is suspicious. 
 
 At the conclusion of Danton's speech Robespierre called 
 for the production of all the original correspondence on the 
 operations in Belgium. Then Cambon announced that the 
 letter of Dumouriez, which had not been read to the Conven- 
 tion (though, of course, it was not a secret in Paris, as any 
 1 M. xv. 815. 
 
1793 SELF-DEFENSIVE SPEECH 1 85 
 
 Deputy might attend the meetings of the Committee of General 
 Defence), had been printed in Belgium, and, blaming its sup- 
 pression, demanded information. On the 3oth taunting voices 
 in the Assembly called for Danton's accounts, for the balance- 
 sheet of the secret-service money, and for a full narrative of 
 what he had done in Belgium. Danton, on this, rose and 
 said 
 
 that, as new letters had reached the Committee, the explana- 
 tion which, in accordance with Cambon's demand, the Con- 
 vention had ordered had better be postponed till the next day, 
 when the Ministers could lay a comprehensive report on the 
 whole question before the Assembly ; that personally he was 
 eager to enter into a full explanation. It was high time that 
 everything was known about Belgium, the generals there, the 
 Commissioners, the army. Prudential reasons had compelled 
 the Commissioners to mark time, so to speak, but at last they 
 would defend themselves against the consequent obloquy to 
 which they had been exposed. As for himself, he welcomed 
 the opportunity of defending his advocacy of Belgian in- 
 corporation, of reinforcing the army, of frankly confessing 
 reverses, and of supporting Dumouriez, whose talents as a 
 general had made him indispensable, though his politics were 
 wrong. As for his letter, common prudence dictated its sup- 
 pression, lest there should be wholesale desertion on the part 
 of officers, and the enemy should be able to seize the strong 
 places. He asked for neither grace nor favour. He had done 
 his duty then, as on August 10. He was perfectly ready to 
 present his accounts, though he had presented them already. 
 ' While he had been actively at work in the service of the State 
 other men had been traducing him in Paris. Now was the 
 time for them to step into the open, where he courted every 
 enquiry, every accusation, where he would categorically answer 
 all questions. He had never used one stroke of a pen to 
 defend himself, but ever since the beginning of the Revolu- 
 tion he had been painted in the most odious colours. Let 
 those who charged him with ambition and embezzlement speak 
 up boldly now, or for the future be silent. Let Roland con- 
 front him there. All these miserable suspicions should be set 
 at rest for ever as soon as everything could be verified by the 
 papers presented by the Ministers. Some men were demand- 
 ing his head. It was on his shoulders still, and would stay 
 there. Let each of them, as Nature had endowed him, strive 
 
1 86 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 for the good of the Republic, not the gratification of petty 
 passions. 
 
 A portion of his speech must be presented entire. 
 
 So prepare to be as frank as I am frank-men even in your 
 hatred, frank in your passions. All these discussions may 
 even now, perhaps, profit the State. Our ills spring from our 
 dissensions. Well, let us make a clean breast of them all. For 
 how comes it that one half of this Assembly treats the other as 
 conspirators, that one half thinks the other wishes to have it 
 massacred ? There was a time for passion. Unhappily that is 
 in the course of Nature. But the hour is come for a complete 
 understanding, that everyone may judge himself according to 
 his own conscience. Let it be known, then, whether you are two 
 factions in one body, an Assembly full of reciprocal jealousy, 
 or whether you are united to save the country. Do you long 
 for reconciliation ? Then with one accord concur in those 
 strict and strong measures demanded by the people against 
 the treasons of which it has so long been victim. Tell the 
 people the truth. Arm them. Armies on the frontiers are 
 not enough. We want at the centre of the Republic one 
 main column which may facilitate war abroad by confronting 
 the enemy at home. 
 
 It was very soon to be made plain how the factions of the 
 Assembly would respond to this appeal. 
 
17C3 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 1 793 continued 
 
 DANTON REBUTS GIRONDIN CHARGES SPEECH OF LASOURCE SCENE 
 IN THE CONVENTION DANTON'S REJOINDER LEVASSEUR'S DE- 
 SCRIPTION OF THE SCENE 
 
 DUMOURIEZ was summoned on March 30 to appear before the 
 Assembly. A report proving his treason was laid before it on 
 April i. When it had been read, Penieres, a Girondin member 
 of the Committee of General Defence, said that on its being 
 settled to suppress for the time the letter of Dumouriez Danton 
 declared that if Dumouriez did not retract he would himself 
 denounce him, but when he came back did not go either to 
 the Assembly or the Committee. He now demanded why 
 Danton had not kept his promise. The historian of the Terror 
 has made the same demand, adding that Danton ' lied impu- 
 dently 'in saying he did not return till Friday the 291x1. It 
 has been shown already that Danton, having spoken in the 
 Assembly on March 27 and 28, could not possibly have told 
 the Assembly on April i that he had not returned till the 29th. 
 Even on April i he could not have so hoped to befool his 
 listeners. He said Friday the 29th instead of Friday the 22nd 
 accidentally, as no doubt everybody who heard him understood 
 at once. We have also seen why Danton did not go to the 
 Assembly after the 22nd. He was waiting to hear from 
 Delacroix, whom he had left in Belgium. He was still hoping 
 against hope that it might be possible to avoid coming to 
 extremities with Dumouriez. And on the 26th he was elected 
 member of the Committee of General Defence. This will 
 
1 88 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 clear up much of what followed in one of the most dramatic 
 scenes which ever occurred in a representative assembly. 
 Danton, in answer to Penieres, said 
 
 that having arrived at 9 o'clock P.M. (he mentions no date here} 
 he did not go to the Committee (implying evidently that it was 
 too late and he was too tired, as well he might be after being in 
 a post chaise some twenty-one hours consecutively ; but next day 
 he did go to the Committee (Penieres had said he did not\ told 
 it of the insolent language Dumouriez was using, and recom- 
 mended the immediate publication of the whole affair, so that 
 everyone present must have understood that he thought 
 Dumouriez ought to be arrested at once. He and the other 
 Commissioners had done their best to thwart Dumouriez by 
 advocating the incorporation of Belgium, which he resisted, 
 and by accusing him they who were charged with defending 
 him of the reverses in Belgium. He had called Dumouriez' 
 plan superb. So it was, and if it had succeeded Dumouriez 
 might have remained loyal. In any case England would have 
 been humbled and Holland conquered. Dumouriez had been 
 led on to treason by members of that Assembly. A commission 
 should be appointed to unmask the criminals, and it would 
 then be seen that everything the Commissioners had done had 
 been done with the Convention's approval. To undo the past 
 a Committee of War should be at once named to improvise 
 another army of 50,000 men ; the other Commissioners should 
 be recalled from Belgium ; and the Executive Council should 
 lay before the Assembly an exact account of what they had 
 done in Belgium. To arrest Dumouriez at the head of his 
 army would have been to disorganise the army. The Com- 
 missioners had no force at their disposal, and not having any 
 badge to denote their having semi-civil, semi-military functions, 
 would have had no sufficient authority in the eyes of the 
 soldiers. No general would, or, if he would, could, have 
 arrested Dumouriez when fighting was going on every two 
 leagues. He made himself personally responsible for all the 
 acts of the Commission, certain that so far from his head falling 
 on the block it would be a Medusa's head to strike terror into 
 all aristocrats. 
 
 The Girondin Lasource then rose and in a plausible speech 
 gave his version of the facts. 
 
 How could Danton say no general would arrest Dumouriez 
 
1793 LASOURCE ATTACKS DANTON 189 
 
 when he had said that the army was so republican that if it 
 read in the papers of his being arraigned for treason it would 
 itself bring him to the bar of the Assembly ? When Robes- 
 pierre proposed inquiry into Dumouriez' conduct Danton 
 opposed it, yet now he said that he told the Committee there 
 was nothing more to be hoped from Dumouriez. 
 
 Maure here interrupted that it had been proposed to send 
 (the Girondin) Gensohne', as being all-powerful with Dumouriez, 
 to concert measures with him. 
 
 Lasource, in continuation, said that Dumouriez 
 
 wished to restore monarchy. To do so he must be at the head 
 of an army. Who ensured this ? Danton. To make the plot 
 succeed it must be popular, and be worked conjointly in Belgium 
 and Paris. So Delacroix gave himself popular airs in Belgium, 
 while Danton came to Paris ' to adopt measures of defence,' 
 and going to the Committee said not a word about what was 
 going on. 
 
 Danton : ' That's a falsehood /' 
 Several voices : ' A falsehood I ' 
 Lasource 
 
 When asked to say why he had quitted Belgium Danton's 
 reply was not to the point. And why did he still stay in Paris, 
 not having resigned his post as Commissioner ? To make the 
 plot succeed it was necessary to depreciate the Convention. 
 This was why Danton had upbraided it with inactivity and 
 threatened an insurrection. To abase the Convention was to 
 exalt Dumouriez. That was what Danton did. To foster the 
 plot it was useful to exaggerate the national danger, so as to 
 alarm the timid or provoke an outbreak of the people, which 
 Dumouriez might be called in to quell. Danton and Delacroix 
 acted accordingly. 
 
 Then Lasource added that he seconded Danton's demand 
 for a Commission and proposed the arrest of Philippe Egalite' 
 and sentence of death on anyone aspiring to royalty or dicta- 
 torship (i.e. Orleans and Danton). The Girondin Biroteau 
 interposed here, charging Fabre d'Eglantine, ' whom all the 
 world knows as Danton's intimate friend,' with having said, at 
 
LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 the Committee of General Defence, that he was in favour of a 
 king. Biroteau added that Fabre d'Eglantine had only been 
 induced to declare himself by being told that opinion was free 
 and that anything said at the meeting was said under the pledge 
 of secresy. He appears to have been unconscious of anything 
 dishonourable in these revelations, which were received with 
 cries of ' That is a lie ! ' and with an outburst from Danton : 
 * It is infamous. You, the King's champions, want to saddle 
 me with your own crimes.' Biroteau was proceeding to quote, 
 as he alleged, Fabre's very words, when Delmas intervened, 
 declaring that such a discussion was ill-timed and that they had 
 better await the results of the Committee proposed by Lasource. 
 This was agreed to, but Danton called on Cambon to say what 
 he knew about the 100,000 crowns sent ' to Danton and 
 Delacroix,' and about their conduct in the matter of the incor- 
 poration of Belgium. He was interrupted by shouts of ' Let it 
 be referred to the Committee,' and this also was agreed to. 
 But as he sat down the whole of the Extreme Left rose and 
 recalled him to the tribune. Danton sprang to it amid thunders 
 of applause from the galleries and a great part of the Assembly. 
 The President, putting on his hat and demanding silence, left 
 it to the Assembly to decide whether Danton should speak or 
 not. Amid tumultuous cries for and against his claim Lasource 
 begged that Danton might be heard, and by a very large 
 majority the Assembly decided in his favour. 
 
 While Lasource had been delivering his oration Danton sat 
 motionless in his seat, curling his lip contemptuously, with a 
 look of wrath and scorn. On reaching the tribune his first 
 words were the key to the whole speech. Turning to the 
 Mountain he told them, amid fierce interruptions, 
 
 that they had judged more wisely than he in blaming him for 
 temporising with the Right, who blindly or basely had con- 
 spired to save the King and yet were so insolent as to assume 
 the attitude of denunciators. 
 
 Then he explained : 
 that he had come back at 8 P.M., Friday, the 29th, twenty-four 
 
1793 DANTON REPLIES 19! 
 
 hours later than some of his colleagues supposed, they being 
 under the impression that he set out immediately his fellow 
 Commissioners in Belgium had come to a decision. 
 
 By this he meant, as has been explained already, that he 
 did not set out from Louvain at 3 A.M. on the 2ist, but from 
 Brussels in the small hours of the morning of the 22nd, 
 Previously he had named nine o'clock as the hour and had not 
 mentioned any date. Evidently the slip was due to the 
 agitation under which he was labouring. If it had not been so 
 obviously a mistake and he had * lied impudently/ scores of 
 tongues would have convicted him on the spot. 
 
 He went on to say 
 
 that he was too tired to go to the Committee that night, but so 
 far from holding his tongue, as Lasource alleged, he went 
 there next day and denounced Dumouriez, proposing that he 
 should be arrested ; that Camus, whom no one would suspect 
 of being a partisan of his, had said neither more nor less than 
 himself, and his report to the Convention was precisely like 
 his own. 
 
 Appealing to some of his audience, who knew the facts, if 
 these assertions were true, he was answered by cries of ' Yes, 
 yes ; ' and then he went on to say 
 
 that it was quite true he had declared that the army would 
 arrest Dumouriez if he had been arraigned in Paris ; but when 
 Lasource asked, 'Why, then, did you not arrest him?' he 
 replied, ' Because at that time he was not arraigned in Paris.' 
 As for the prudent, the necessary suppression of the letter and 
 his return to Dumouriez, it was he who had proposed that 
 Guadet and Gensonne, friends of Dumouriez, should go, in 
 order that both parties, not one, should be represented, and that 
 Dumouriez might be convinced of their unanimity in refusing 
 to be dictated to by one man. He could quote the very words 
 he used. ' Ou nous le guerirons momentanement ou nous le 
 garrotterons? He had withstood the financial and personal pro- 
 jects of Dumouriez, who, the Girondin journal had said, would 
 never mingle his laurels with the cypresses of September. As to 
 the money he had received, he appealed to Cambon (who rose 
 and corroborated what Danton had said]. Lasource said he had 
 abased the Convention. Abase it ! Who had done more to 
 
LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 uphold its dignity than he, who had been respectful even to 
 his enemies there? (Here there were cries of 'Just now, for 
 instance] meaning that he had occupied the tribune.} Just 
 now ! well, that was true ; he admitted the charge ; but why 
 for once had he abandoned his usual moderation ? Because 
 incessant provocation had at last worn out his patience. 
 Lasource had attacked Delacroix. Delacroix was his friend, and 
 he was attacked because he had broken away from federalist 
 ideas and would not join the conspiracy to spare the King. 
 (Here someone cried, ''Don't talk so much. Answer?} 
 Answer! Answer what? He had already shown that his 
 report and that of Camus were identical, that if Dumouriez 
 was not brought bound hand and foot to the Convention he 
 individually was not to blame, but Camus and the Com- 
 missioners as a body, who could only act collectively, and who 
 did not arrest him simply because it was impossible. It was 
 the Girondins, the men who sought to arm the Departments 
 against Paris, who were the friends of Dumouriez (Marat : 
 ' And those little suppers of theirs ! '), who had consorted with 
 him at clandestine suppers in Paris (Marat : * Lasource, Lasource 
 was at them. Oh, I will unmask all the traitors ! ') ; but he 
 had nothing to fear from Dumouriez, whom he defied to 
 produce one single line incriminating him in any way, whereas 
 the federalists (Cries of 'Name them!') (Marat, to the 
 Right ; No ; you shall not succeed in murdering the country ! ' ) 
 did they wish him to name whom he meant ? ( Cries of 
 { Yes, yes/) Let them listen, then. (Marat: 'Listen!') Did 
 they want one word that would serve for all? (Cries of 
 * Yes, yes.') Well, he declared that there could no more be 
 any truce between the patriots of the Mountain and the 
 dastards who dared to traduce them as aiming at tyranny 
 when they had themselves wished to spare the tyrant's life. 
 Lasource had merely repeated once more the stale charges of 
 the old fox Roland, who, poor old man, so lost his head that 
 he thought everyone was seeking his life, even Pache, Pache 
 whom he himself had made Minister i How stupid to try and 
 embroil Marseilles with the Mountain, the Departments with 
 Paris, the people with the Jacobins, and to say that the same 
 men could serve two masters, Orleans and the Mountain ! 
 How stupid to suppose that the rebel against the Revolutionary 
 Tribunal would coalesce with its author; the supporter of 
 Three Estates in Belgium with the scourge of its aristocrats ; 
 the calumniator of the Commissioners with the man who pro- 
 
1793 DANTON ATTACKS THE GIRONDINS 
 
 posed the Commission ; the reviler of the volunteers with him 
 at whose voice they volunteered ! 
 
 After again demanding that the inquiry to be held 
 should be thorough, and into the acts of the Rolandists 
 as well as his own, he concluded with these words to the 
 * Mountain ' : 
 
 No more compromise with them. See to it, you who have 
 never known how to profit as you ought by your political 
 position ! Claim at last what is your due. You see by the 
 situation I am now in how necessary it is to be firm, and to 
 declare war against your enemies, whoever they may be. We 
 must form an unconquerable phalanx. It is not you, friends 
 of the popular societies and the people, who wish for a king. 
 It is you who must eradicate that craze from those who 
 intrigued to save the tyrant now dead. My goal is the 
 Republic. Let us make for it side by side, and see which of 
 us, we or our detractors, will reach that at which he aims. J 
 have proved that, far from being an accomplice of Dumouriez, 
 he accused us in so many words of enforcing the incorporation 
 of Belgium at the sword's point, that he publicly threatened 
 to arrest us, that it was impossible for Delacroix and myself, 
 apart from our colleagues, to arrest him at the head of his 
 army. I have replied to every charge. I have done so to the 
 satisfaction of every man of sense and honour. And now I 
 demand that the Committee of Six, which you have just 
 appointed, inquire not only into the acts of those who have 
 calumniated you, who have intrigued against the unity of the 
 Republic, but also of the men who sought to spare the tyrant, 
 and, finally, of all criminals whose aim has been to ruin 
 liberty, and we shall see whether I have any fear of my 
 accusers. My stronghold is reason. I will issue from it with 
 truth for my artillery, and I will crush the wretches who would 
 incriminate me into dust. 
 
 The scene has been described by an eye-witness who was 
 by no means an indiscriminate admirer of Danton, and his 
 account is for this reason valuable as well as picturesque. 
 
 I shall never forget the moment when Lasource began his 
 amazing accusation of Danton. While with captious arguments 
 he was labouring to metamorphose this formidable champion 
 of the Mountain into a secret partisan of Dumouriez ; while he 
 
194 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 was piling up forced deductions to lend a semblance of 
 substance to his indictment, and piecing together all the parts 
 of this flimsy scaffolding with unconcealed self-complacency, 
 Danton, motionless on his bench, kept curling his lip with an 
 expression of contempt which was habitual to him and inspired 
 a sort of fear. His look evinced at once disdain and anger. 
 His attitude was in contrast to the workings of his face, and in 
 this strange mixture of calm and agitation you could see he 
 only refrained from interrupting his adversary because he 
 would be so easy to answer and so certain to be overwhelmed. 
 But when Lasource had ended and Danton was hurrying along 
 our rows to the tribune, he pointed at the Right as he passed, 
 and said in a low voice, ' The scoundrels, they would saddle 
 us with their crimes.' It was easy to see that his impetuous 
 eloquence, long pent up, was about to burst all barriers, and 
 that our enemy would have cause to tremble. And in fact his 
 speech was a declaration of war rather than an apology. His 
 Stentor-voice pealed through the Assembly like an alarm-gun 
 summoning the soldier to the breach. From that moment he 
 abandoned those conciliatory tactics which he had thought to 
 be for the interest of the State, and, convinced at last that the 
 Girondins would never unite with him to save the liberty he 
 held so dear, he declared plainly that it should be saved with- 
 out them. Many a time had he refused to pick up the gauntlet 
 flung to him day after day in the Assembly. At last he had 
 accepted the challenge, and stepping into the arena for the 
 first time armed at all points, he was about to show the Right 
 that the overthrow of such an athlete would not be a painless 
 achievement. After his vigorous outset Danton spoke more 
 than two hours, answering his accuser charge by charge. His 
 reply was ready, and of overwhelming logic and energy. He 
 demonstrated that Dumouriez had reserved all his hatred for 
 the Mountain, all his regard for the Right ; that it was from 
 the Mountain that the first shafts of suspicion had been 
 launched at Roland's old colleague, only on that memorable 
 1 2th of March to be repelled by the Right as treasonable 
 weapons. In short, after tracking Lasource through all his 
 premisses and all his deductions in turn, he pulverised all of 
 them alike. . . . After his defence he took the offensive. 
 To judge of the whole effect produced by this eloquent im- 
 provisation it must be remembered that till then Danton had 
 sought to act as mediator between the two parties in the 
 Assembly ; that though sitting at the top of the Mountain he 
 
1793 LEVASSEUR DESCRIBES THE SCENE 195 
 
 was, in a way, chief of the Plain ; that he had often rebuked 
 our passion, had combated Robespierre's suspiciousness, and 
 had maintained that, instead of waging war on the Girondins, 
 they ought to be constrained to second us and co-operate with 
 us for the good of the nation. Only a few days before this 
 onslaught of Lasource, Danton had had a conference with the 
 leading men of the Right, at which it was agreed to act in 
 concord and concentrate all efforts for the conquest of the 
 invaders and the confusion of the aristocracy. 
 
 We all of us loved Danton, but most of us thought him 
 mistaken in trying to reunite the Girondins and the Mountain. 
 Most of us, it is true, had consented to be led by him to the 
 fusion on which he seemed to build such hopes, but it was 
 more by way of an experiment in which we had small belief 
 than from conviction it would succeed, as Danton promised 
 us. So when this impassioned speaker, stupidly provoked by 
 one of the skirmishers of the other side, made so powerful a 
 reply to so impudent an attack, when he declared such un- 
 compromising war on men with whom we had long ago seen 
 "it was impossible to be at peace, when he, so to speak, burned 
 his boats to deprive himself of any chance of changing his 
 mind, we were transported with a sort of electric enthusiasm ; 
 we looked at Danton's unexpected resolution as the signal of 
 certain victory. As soon as he left the tribune a great number 
 of Deputies ran to embrace him, and the hall rang with cheer 
 after cheer. However, here the incident ended. Lasource 
 having made no formal motion the Convention simply resumed 
 business. But if Danton's oration had no immediate result it 
 had an immense influence on men's minds. We felt sure of 
 the future, and the Girondins no longer seemed formidable 
 now he had determined to fight. The acquisition of him was 
 in our eyes worth an army. 
 
 O 2 
 
196 LIFE OF DAN TON 1793 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 1 793 continued 
 
 1 SANS-CULOTTE ' ARMY COMMITTEE OF SAFETY SCENES IN THE CON- 
 VENTION DANTON'S SPEECH GUADET ATTACKS DANTON AND 
 
 MARAT DANTON ON ORLEANS RETRACTATION *- DOCTRINE OF 
 PROPAGANDA THE RICH TO PAY FOR THE WAR VIOLENCE OF 
 FACTION 
 
 ' PLUS de treve. Plus de composition.' This seemed to be 
 indeed throwing away the scabbard the voice of ' the strongest 
 and the fiercest spirit ' of the Assembly, * now fiercer by 
 despair,' declaring irrevocably, * My sentence is for open war.' 
 But though henceforward Danton's demeanour to the Right 
 was never what it had been before, his 'fierceness' was 
 that of an impetuous, not a revengeful nature, and if his 
 hand could have averted them there would have been no 
 proscriptions. On the very day of his speech Dumouriez 
 had arrested the Convention's Commissioners, 1 and in view 
 of the common danger he again appealed for concord, inter- 
 posing as peacemaker on April 4, after a scene of alter- 
 cation provoked by a speech by Marat. * Rapprochons-nous, 
 rapprochons fraternellementj he cried, ' // y va du salut de 
 tons:* 
 
 None the less did he prepare for the coming struggle. On 
 the 5th he proposed the formation of an armed and paid body 
 of sans-culottes to keep aristocratic citizens ' sous la pique,' and 
 the regulation of the price of bread by the rate of workmen's 
 wages, any loss to the vendor to be made good by the rich. 
 The abstract defensibility of this enlistment of physical force, 
 1 M.-T. vi. 351. 2 M. xvi. 57. 
 
1793 DESPERATE DISEASES DESPERATE REMEDIES 197 
 
 and of this rough and ready poor law, is open to criticism, but 
 there can be no doubt of their efficacy in identifying the 
 people with the revolutionary party ; nor did he conceal his 
 object* 'By this decree alone,' he said, 'you will ensure 
 means of subsistence to the people without wounding its self- 
 respect, and will attach it to the Revolution.' When the Army 
 of the North was in retreat, when the Rolandists were stirring 
 up the Departments, when La Vendee was in flames, there was 
 no choice left. The people must be 'attached to the 
 Revolution,' or the cause of the Revolution was lost- 
 
 Never, in fact, had it been in greater peril than when on 
 the 7th Danton's name was announced as one of the newly 
 ^jippointed Committee of Public Safety, This famous Com- 
 mittee, nominally proposed by Isnard, as Reporter of the 
 Committee of General Defence, was really due to Danton, who, 
 also a member of that Committee, must have had much to do 
 with the verbal definition of its powers. What it signified as to 
 the past was the failure of Government by the Convention that 
 is, by its Girondin majority. What it heralded was govern- 
 ment by Danton, who, as he had stemmed the tide of disaster in 
 1792, now stood in the breach again, and laid the foundation 
 of the system by which the military reverses of the next two 
 months were to be changed into the victories of September. 
 The Girondins suspected then, but no one would assert now, 
 that Danton aimed at becoming a Dictator. He had no such 
 personal ambition. But the logic of events had taught him 
 that there must be a responsible Executive ; that ' a Republic, 
 while proscribing dictators and triumvirs, had none the less the 
 power, as it was indeed its dutyj to create an authority which 
 would be feared.' This was the policy which Danton advo- 
 cated, at first in vain, in the Convention. It took concrete 
 form in the Committee of Public Safety. He looked on it not 
 as desirable in itself, but as a necessity just as he had re- 
 garded the Revolutionary Tribunal, not as a good institution, 
 but as the ' least bad ' one possible. 
 
 While this great engine was being forged violent alterca- 
 
198 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 lions went on in the Assembly. On the loth Petion proposed 
 that the authors of a petition demanding Roland's arraignment 
 and using dictatorial language to the Convention should be 
 sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Danton rose to a 
 point of order, and as he dashed towards the rostrum a 
 number of Deputies from each party followed him, almost 
 coming to blows. 'You are a set of scoundrels,' cried 
 Danton. ' Down with the Dictator ! ' retorted his antago- 
 nists. At last Petion was allowed to proceed, though a few 
 minutes later David grotesquely showed how electric the air 
 was by suddenly, on Petion's using the word l scelerats', 
 stepping solemnly into the middle of the hall and saying, ' I 
 offer my life and my conduct for examination.' ' You are 
 not in possession of the House, Petion is,' curtly remarked 
 Thuriot, the President. Petion then introduced that perpetual 
 bone of contention, the name of Marat, who, he said, was an 
 Orleanist, and, far worse, was allowed to occupy the rostrum 
 far oftener than a certain ' man noted for his probity and 
 principles ' whom Petion did not name, though he clearly 
 thought him 'as pretty a piece of flesh as any in Messina.' 
 * Que dira-t-on dans les departements ? ' he said before he sat 
 down words which, even from lips no longer looked on as 
 reverend, must have seemed grave and ominous. 
 
 Danton on another occasion pleaded for the utmost possible 
 latitude being allowed to the wording of a petition as being at 
 once dignified and more politic. He now declared 
 
 that it was only natural that there should be feverish efferves- 
 cences among the people when they saw the Assembly 
 perpetually a gladiatorial arena. Petion's proposal was frivo- 
 lous. Petitions more or less exaggerated were presented every 
 day. The wisdom of the Assembly was to take a hint from 
 such exaggerations. If they reached the point of illegality there 
 were laws and tribunals to which those who thought it their duty 
 might appeal. What a sea the Assembly would embark on if 
 it prosecuted them all itself ! It ought to be thinking how to 
 conquer the Austrians, how to pacify La Vendee, how to frame 
 a Constitution, and not to allow its time to be wasted on these 
 pitiful squabbles. 
 
1703 MARAT AND THE GIRONDINS IQQ 
 
 Two days later, on the i2th, Guadet, in answering Robes- 
 pierre, taunted Danton with being at the Opera with Dumouriez, 
 and attempted to work on Robespierre's jealousy by saying 
 I )anton only counted him ' third ' among his agents. Danton 
 rejoined that Guadet was at the Opera too, and that he would 
 prove Guadet's criminality. 
 
 By such petty strategy the Girondins played into the hands 
 of their enemies, and they were still worse advised in choosing 
 this particular moment for measuring swords with Marat. 
 Marat had expressed confidence in Dumouriez just before his 
 treason, but on previous occasions he had denounced him, and 
 the people, judging him as they might a weather-prophet, re- 
 membered only his true and forgot his false predictions. He 
 was, therefore, never more formidable than now. Petion had 
 charged him with being an Orleanist. Guadet clinched the 
 accusation by saying Dumouriez was an Orleanist, and the 
 instrument in a plot of which Orleans was chief. Then he read 
 out an extract from one of Marat's manifestos accusing the 
 Right of treason. Marat sprang up, and beginning his speech 
 with * Pourquoi ce vain batelage, et a quoi bon ? ' declared that 
 the accusation was true. The Assembly were about to vote 
 whether he should be sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal 
 or not, when Danton rose. He began by referring to the 
 original denunciation of Orleans by Robespierre, out of which 
 all these counter-accusations had sprung, saying 
 
 it would have been better if he had refrained from saying any- 
 thing he could not prove. The main question seemed to be 
 an Orleanist plot. This plot had till now seemed to him a 
 chimera, but he began to think there must be some truth in it. 
 Marat was at least a member of the Convention and entitled to 
 fair play. He was accused by Petion and Guadet, and he was 
 their accuser, but they agreed in incriminating Orleans. Let 
 Orleans, then, be sent before the Tribunal. That was the first 
 thing to be done. And let a price be put on the heads of the 
 royal emigres. 
 
 Here someone asked : ' But what would be the fate of our 
 Commissioners whom Dumouriez arrested ? ' 
 
20O LIFE OF DAMON 1793 
 
 Their Commissioners (he answered) were worthy of the 
 nation and of the Convention. They would face their fate like 
 "Regulus. As for Marat, it was only just that his case should 
 be first referred to a Committee, and not decided in the Assem- 
 bly, so many members of which were away on missions. Marat 
 had no intention of running away. 
 
 While all these charges of Orleanism were being bandied 
 about no one accused Danton, as Marat was accused, openly 
 and directly, nor can language less like that of an Orleanist 
 partisan be conceived than the above, while to use it, if he had 
 been in the pay of Orleans, would have been to court an un- 
 scrupulous man's revenge. In tracing Danton's career from day 
 to day we are perpetually confronted with this entire lack of 
 contemporary evidence, when evidence would have been so 
 greedily welcomed, for charges brought against him at his trial 
 and after he was dead. Lasource's elaborate parade of evidence 
 had dissolved into the thinnest of smoke. And now, while 
 Marat was a target for the shafts of the Right, Danton went un- 
 scathed. 
 
 Marat's trial, acquittal, and triumphant reappearance in the 
 Assembly, amid an escort of boisterous partisans, elicited from 
 1 )anton a characteristic speech to the effect * that everyone 
 must hail the acquittal of a member of the Convention, that it 
 was proper to allow his escort to pass through the Assembly, 
 but they must now go away and leave the Deputies to their 
 work.' Thus almost in a breath he emphasised the humiliation 
 of the Girondins and his own instinctive tact as a popular tri- 
 bune. This occurred on the 24th. 
 
 Meanwhile on the i3th he made his famous retractation of 
 the doctrine of propaganda, as will be noticed in a subsequent 
 chapter, 1 and on the i9th expressed some noble sentiments on 
 religious freedom. Once more, and evidently with unfeigned 
 pleasure, holding conciliatory language to the Girondins, he 
 said: 
 
 Nothing could be of better omen for our country's good than 
 1 M. xvi. 128, 143, 
 
1793 TAXATION OF THE RICH 2OI 
 
 our present attitude. We have seemed divided, but the 
 moment we consider the happiness of our fellow creatures we are 
 all united. Vergniaud has just uttered some great and eternal 
 truths. 
 
 He went on to say 
 
 that a declaration of tolerance was no longer necessary, as it 
 was in the time of the Constituent Assembly, when the reign of 
 intolerance was only just over ; that the sacred right of a man 
 to adore the Divinity of his choice was in no danger, for human 
 reason could not retrograde, nor would the people believe it 
 was not free to worship as it pleased because it saw no express 
 permission graven on the table of the law. The people, when 
 not led astray, invariably recognised that anyone intervening 
 between itself and its God was an impostor. 
 
 On the 2yth he vindicated the principle of the rich paying 
 the expenses of poorer volunteers, pointing to the example of 
 the Department of Herault, and arguing 
 
 that it was for the good of the rich themselves, for their contri- 
 butions constituted an insurance against invasion. Paris wealth 
 and Paris luxury must also pay. It was a sponge that must 
 be squeezed. There would be pleasure in making the domestic 
 enemy pay for the foreign war. Paris would call on her capi- 
 talists, would give her sons to quell the civil strife in La Vendee. 
 And for that purpose he demanded the enrolment of 20,000 
 men. 
 
 On May 8 he returned to the same theme. 
 
 It was a truth graven in history and the human heart that a 
 nation when in revolution or civil war was no less formidable to 
 a foreign foe. All France was astir. Twelve thousand troops 
 of the line were marching for La Vendee, and the gaps thus 
 created were being rilled by volunteers. But while using force 
 they would do well to take example by the Emperor in Belgium, 
 and use clemency, freely offering pardon to all rebels who would 
 anticipate the use of force by submission, and inflicting the 
 most rigorous penalties only on those originating or propaga- 
 ting rebellion. In Paris commissioners must go to each Section 
 in order to assess the rich and enrol the poor ; and any Section 
 not furnishing within three days its proper contingent should 
 be made to draw its men by lot. As for the richer Sections, 
 
202 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 the sum squeezed from each of these sponges should not be- 
 long to one Section, but to all. 
 
 On the loth he controverted a fantastic scheme of Isnard 
 for decreeing, previous to the Constitution, a ' pacte social? 
 
 The Constitution (he said) was itself the 'pacte social,' 
 and, when once accepted by the people, imperishable. But as 
 that day the Deputies were holding session for the first time in 
 the palace of despots it would be a fine opportunity for laying 
 the foundation-stone of the Constitution by declaring anew 
 that the Government of France was republican, and then dis- 
 cussing some elementary inferences therefrom, viz. that the 
 Executive be elected by the people, and that as a counterpoise 
 to its power a national tribunal be created, with jurisdiction 
 over all officials when quitting office. 
 
 Little but the foundation-stone of which Danton spoke was 
 to be laid by the members of the Assembly as constituted on 
 the loth. For the next fortnight he was silent. He was 
 watching with sorrow the ever-increasing violence of the 
 extremists on both sides of the Assembly, among whom Marat 
 was always foremost, and when he spoke again on the 24th the 
 struggle had become one for life or death. 
 
1793 203 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 1 793 continued 
 
 GIRONDIN THREATS COMMITTEE OF TWELVE ISNARD DANTON'S 
 SPEECH ARREST OF HEBERT ISNARD'S FOLLY DANTON'S REPLY 
 AND THREAT OF RESISTANCE PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS GAR AT 
 DANTON'S SPEECH SUPPRESSION AND RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF. 
 COMMITTEE OF TWELVE INSURRECTION OVERTHROW OF THE 
 GIRONDINS 
 
 WHILE the Convention was engaged in discussing the articles 
 of the new Constitution its time had been taken up by 
 incessant deputations, either from the Commune attempting to 
 influence its decisions or from Sections favouring the Right or 
 the Left, or from Bordeaux fiercely denouncing the party of 
 Marat. Marat's triumph had been followed by a reaction, and 
 crowds had collected in the streets to the cry of * Down with 
 the Anarchists ! ' L Irritated by this, he became more and 
 more outrageous, but not one whit more so than the Girondin 
 Press or some of the Girondin Deputies, led by the acrimonious 
 Guadet. 2 The Right declared they went in fear of their lives 
 in Paris. The Left retorted that those who whined had not 
 received a scratch, that the only attempts at assassination had 
 been made on their own Deputies, and that there was a plot to 
 coerce Paris by an armed force from the Departments. 3 The 
 Girondin leaders were rash enough to lend colour to such 
 assertions by their threats. ' The men of Bordeaux will come 
 to Paris if the Convention is menaced,' said Guadet ; and he 
 proposed first that the Convention should adjourn to Versailles, 
 
 1 M.-T. vii. 215, 241. 2 M. xvi. 415, 421-2. M.-T. vii. 216, 225. 
 8 M.-T, vii. 226. 
 
2O4 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 and then that another Convention should meet at Bourges, in 
 case the existing Convention should be dissolved. ' If,' said 
 Vergniaud, 'threats and outrages force us to withdraw, the 
 Department which sent me here will have nothing more in 
 common with a town which has done despite to the repre- 
 sentatives of the nation.' And from a great part of the 
 Assembly rose cries of * So say we.' And afterwards he said : 
 ' None of us will die without being revenged. Our Departments 
 are up, and the conspirators know it.' 
 
 On the 1 8th of May it was agreed to appoint a Committee 
 of Twelve to inquire into plots against the Convention.^ That 
 same day a woman of the people outraged the decorum of the 
 Assembly by trying to drag out a young man from one of the 
 seats allotted to citizens from the country. 1 The President, 
 Isnard, discerned in this a new plan of the French aristocracy, 
 Pitt, England, and Austria for destroying liberty ! 
 
 Ah ! (he wailed), 2 could you but open my heart you would 
 see my love for France, and should I be immolated on this 
 chair my last sigh would be for her, and my last words, ' O God, 
 pardon my assassins they are misled but save the liberty of 
 my country.' Yes ; the people are being misled, being urged 
 to insurrection, and this insurrection will begin with the 
 women. The murder of several members of this Assembly, 
 and its dissolution, is desired. The English will make a 
 descent and join in overthrowing the Revolution. 
 
 This speech was received with applause from a large part 
 of the Assembly ! What hope could there be for a party 
 which had a babbler of this sort as one of its foremost members, 
 and could cheer him for seeing, in the descent of a Jacobin 
 Amazon on a country bumpkin, the descent of an English 
 fleet on the French coasts ? Yet one chance more they had 
 of showing tact and prudence when two days later they found 
 themselves in a majority on the Committee of Twelve. On 
 the 22nd that chance was lost. Rabaut-Pommier that day 
 proposed that all towns of over 50,000 inhabitants should be 
 
 * M. xvi. 420. 8 M.-T. vii. 239. 
 
1793 ISNARD'S MENACE 205 
 
 split up into several municipalities, and he was supported by 
 Buzot, who hated Paris at which of course the motion was 
 aimed with all his heart. 1 'You might as well,' said Collot 
 d'Herbois, for once not ranting, ' argue that a ship because it 
 is bigger than another wants a number of helms.' 
 
 This mistimed and maladroit provocation to a city already 
 half in insurrection was ill calculated to procure a good 
 reception for the measures of the Committee of Twelve. The 
 first article was as follows : ' The National Convention entrusts 
 to good citizens the public treasure, the representatives of the 
 nation, and the town of Paris.' On this Danton observed 
 ' that it was absurd to create a new law for the protection of 
 the Convention, since the existing laws were ample for the 
 purpose.' Taking up the same position as Isnard, that the 
 only danger was from 'the aristocracy' a bugbear phrase 
 resorted to by each party alternately when it wished to avoid 
 naming the foe really designated he argued 
 
 that the vast number of good citizens in a big town like Paris 
 coulfl easily overawe any assailants of the representatives of 
 the nation. It had been an insult to Paris to propose a 
 Departmental Guard, and they should beware lest the creation 
 of a committee to inquire into Paris plots should create a 
 demand for one to inquire into plots to spread disaffection in 
 the Departments. 
 
 Such grim irony did not deter the Committee of Twelve 
 from assuming the offensive, in spite of the strong opposition 
 of such men as Rabaut, Fonfrede, and Garat, by arresting 
 Hebert, the deputy-procureur of the Commune. The 
 Commune at once sent a deputation to protest angrily. 
 Isnard, again President, again signalised himself by the 
 insanity of his language, language never forgotten, never 
 forgiven, 2 which alienated from his party the bourgeois citizens 
 in the coming struggle and was instrumental in bringing many 
 of his friends to the block. ' If Paris should ever do despite 
 to the representative body, I tell you, in the name of all France, 
 
 1 M.-T. vii. 211. M.-T. vii. 330, 342. 
 
206 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 Paris would be annihilated. Someone would have to search 
 the banks of the Seine to see if Paris ever existed.' 
 
 No words could have been used which Danton would have 
 more resented. He hastened to answer Isnard. 1 
 
 What a picture to paint, Paris devastated by the Depart- 
 ments ! The words of a President should be healing words. 
 France could rely on Paris never deviating from the path it 
 had always trod, and on its never replacing the old tyranny by 
 a new one. The representative body had to steer its way 
 between two reefs. Perfection could not be expected in a 
 party. If in the popular party there were criminals the people 
 would punish them ; but if a choice had to be made between 
 one of two evils the license of liberty was preferable to a 
 recrudescence of slavery. If there had been no men of action, 
 if the people had never had recourse to violence, there would 
 have been no Revolution, and that the men of the Mountain 
 should never forget. He had no wish to irritate anyone. He 
 felt himself too strong in reason for that. Nor should his 
 opponents try to irritate the Departments against Paris. Paris 
 outrage the National Assembly ! Paris, that immense city 
 which every day drew from the nation fresh life, violate the 
 sacred ark entrusted to it ! No ; Paris was the Revolution's 
 lover, and for the sacrifices she had made for liberty Paris 
 deserved to be clasped to every Frenchman's heart. The 
 nation would know what to think of the proposal to remove 
 the Convention to another town. Go where it would its 
 passions would go with it. But, in spite of all their dissen- 
 sions, France, still recognising Paris as the proper centre, for 
 its representatives, would know how to save itself. 
 
 Two days after this speech, the 27th, a deputation from one 
 of the Sections came to protest against the arrest of its 
 president and secretary by the Committee of Twelve, an act, 
 they said, recalling the time of httres de cachet? Isnard 
 snubbed them in a speech bristling with provocations to the 
 leaders of the Mountain, and Robespierre claimed, but was 
 refused, the right to criticise it. A violent scene ensued, and 
 Danton said : * Such shamelessness becomes intolerable. We 
 
 1 M. xvi. 483. - M. xvi. 491. 
 
1793 RUMOURED PLOTS 2O? 
 
 will resist.' The Right demanded that the threat should be 
 entered on the minutes of the proceedings. 
 
 I demand that myself (said Danton). I declare before the 
 Convention and before all France that if you persist in keeping 
 in irons citizens only presumably guilty, whose sole crime is 
 excess of patriotism, if you perpetually refuse to those wishing 
 to defend them their right of speech, I declare, I say, that if 
 there are a hundred good citizens in this hall we will resist. I 
 declare, and I will sign my declaration, that the refusal to hear 
 Kobespierre is dastardly tyranny. 
 
 And he ended with : ' I protest against your despotism, against 
 your tyranny. The French people will judge between us.' 
 
 Isnard had much to answer for. How much Thuriot said 
 a little later, reminding the Assembly ' that Isnard was the 
 man who had declared Jesus Christ to be Commander-in- 
 Chief of the rebels in La Vendee, and denouncing Isnard as an 
 incendiary rather than a maintainer of order, at a time when 
 connivance with disorder meant complicity with the threaten- 
 ing movements of the foreign enemy.' This was the true 
 Dantonist note, and, though Danton neither could nor wished 
 to sever himself from the Mountain, anyone reading his 
 speeches side by side with the furious words and insults 
 scattered about by other men on both sides will recognise that 
 mere personalities were never to his taste, and that he was 
 always fighting for a principle or a policy. 
 
 The air of Paris was now full of rumours of plots plots 
 to crown the Dauphin, to punish all Deputies who had not 
 voted for the King's death, to assassinate all except certain 
 Deputies of the Mountain. On the other hand Marat's detective 
 instincts unearthed meetings at the house of Valaze, which 
 were attended by men like Brissot, Gensonne, Buzot, Barbaroux, 
 Guadet ; l and Valaze was compelled to own he had addressed 
 to them the following summons : ^En armes a la Convention a 
 dix heures precises du matin : je vous somme davertir k plus 
 grand nombre possible de vos collegues. Couard qui tie se trouvc 
 
 ' M.-T. vii. 254. 
 
208 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 pas? Danton, having to choose, as he had said, between two 
 evils, preferred the * excesses of liberty ' to those of * slavery ' ; 
 but he would have steered clear of all excess had he been able. 
 It was his friend Legendre who proposed on the 23rd that the 
 Convention should make all presidents of Sections and clubs 
 responsible for propositions of a lawless kind, unless they 
 called the proposers to order and handed them over to the 
 police. But when the Dantonists would have thrown water 
 on the flames Isnard and Marat poured oil. The battle still 
 raged inside the Assembly, and outside there was a mob of 
 citizens and a battalion sent by the Committee of Twelve to 
 hold it in check. Garat, Minister of the Interior, was announced, 
 and with him Pache, the Mayor. Garat made a long speech 
 which completely justified the line taken by Danton and 
 Thuriot, took exception to the acts of the Committee of 
 Twelve, acquitted Hubert as far as his acts in the Commune 
 went, and assured the Assembly that the mob outside were 
 less in number than the troops. 
 
 Garat, if a weak, was an honourable man, and it is impos- 
 sible to disregard his evidence, even if there were no other to 
 show that the Girondins were themselves as much to blame as 
 anyone for the civil war. Danton's conduct is shown by the 
 appeal he addressed to Garat. 
 
 This thunder (he said) will, I flatter myself, clear the 
 air. ... I did not know the Minister of the Interior. I had 
 no connection with him. I call on him to declare and it 
 concerns me now, when a Deputy (Brissot) has made a san- 
 guinary onslaught on me, now, when the money I received for a 
 post is exaggerated into a huge fortune- 
 Here he was interrupted by cries of: 
 
 * Don't talk about yourself and your squabble with Brissot.' 
 
 * I mention that,' he replied, ' because the Committee of 
 Public Safety has been accused of favouring the disturbances 
 in Paris.' 
 
 Other cries arose : 
 f We don't say so.' 
 
179a THE COMMITTEE OF TWELVE 2C>9 
 
 You do not like to hear the truth, you friends of order. 
 May your conduct make it clear who are the friends of anarchy ! 
 I appeal, I repeat, to the Minister to say whether I have not 
 over and over again gone to his house to press him to allay 
 these agitations, to unite the Departments, to put an end to 
 the prejudice instilled into them against Paris. I call on him 
 to say if I have not implored him to pacify rancour, if I have 
 not said, ' I would not have you flatter either party, but preach 
 the union of both.' There are people who cannot live without 
 a grievance. I am not of that sort. I am by nature impulsive, 
 but I am not vindictive. I call on him to say if he has not 
 come to the conclusion that the pretended friends of order 
 have been the cause of all these contentions, and the most 
 far-going citizens the best friends of order and peace. 
 
 While Danton was speaking deputations continued to come 
 demanding the suppression of the Committee of Twelve. Now 
 if ever at the crisis of their fate the Girondins might have been 
 expected to show vigilance and resolution ; but, though it was 
 still early, one by one they slipped away and went to bed. 
 Isnard had left the chair. Herault de Sechelles took his place. 
 Delacroix proposed the suppression of the Committee of Twelve 
 and the release of Hebert. Both resolutions were carried by the 
 Left, and the House rose at midnight, May 27.* That night 
 the Girondins may be said to have dug their own graves. One 
 desperate effort to retrieve the position was indeed made next 
 day. The suppression of the Committee of Twelve was 
 annulled, and the Right seemed again masters of the field of 
 battle. But it was a last, a Pyrrhic victory. Danton's 
 language presaged their fate. 
 
 It is time for the people to cease limiting itself to defensive 
 war, and to take the offensive against the party of the Moderates. 
 ... It is time for us to coalesce against the plots of all who 
 wish to destroy the Republic. . . . Paris will always be the 
 terror of the enemies of liberty ; and its Sections, on the great 
 days when the people shall form again in their thousands, will 
 always annihilate these wretched Feuillants, those dastardly 
 Moderates who triumph only for the moment, 
 
 1 M. xvi. 500, 
 
210. LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 It is said that some of the Girondin leaders at last saw 
 their folly and made overtures to Danton. 1 But it was too 
 late. ' They do not trust me,' he said. Further forbearance 
 might have ruined him and could not have saved them. All 
 the 2gth and most of the 3oth the Sections made preparations 
 for insurrection. On the 3oth a friend of Danton's, Rousselin, 
 headed a deputation demanding that the Committee of 
 Twelve should be again suppressed. 2 This, of course, was a 
 constitutional proceeding and justified by events. Even some 
 of the Right had refused to vote with their party when it 
 reversed the suppression of the Committee. Nor did the 
 Committee of Public Safety, on which Danton sat, counte- 
 nance unconstitutional movements. At midnight it summoned 
 the mayor and the Minister of the Interior to answer for the 
 state of Paris, 3 and Pache assured them that order would be 
 maintained and no disrespect shown to the Assembly. But 
 the conspirators who had met in the old episcopal palace, 
 1'Eveche, ordered the tocsin to be sounded and the gates 
 closed, and at 6 A.M. on the 3ist 4 went to the hall of the 
 Commune, ousted the members of it, who were all, or most of 
 them, merely simulating resistance, and then reinstalled 
 Pache, Chaumette, Hebert, and their friends. Much the 
 same comedy was played in the Departmental Council. 5 Then, 
 to complete the parody of August 10, Hanriot was appointed 
 Commander of the National Guards, and received warrants for 
 the arrest of Roland, Claviere, Lebrun, and others. 
 
 Meanwhile the Convention had assembled at 6 A.M. 6 
 Garat came there and recommended as a measure of 
 pacification the suppression of the Committee of Twelve. 
 After him appeared Deputies from the Department, who 
 informed the Assembly that the insurrection was only a 
 ' moral ' insurrection. Then came Pache with reassurances, 
 followed by a letter from the officer at the Pont Neuf, 
 
 1 M.-T. vii. 297. 2 M. xvi. 522. 
 
 3 M. xvi. 523. M.-T. vii. 314. 4 M.-T. vii. 315. 
 
 5 M.-T. vii. 3-9. 6 M. xvi. 523. 
 
1703 DANTON AND THE COMMITTEE 211 
 
 reporting that Hanriot had ordered the alarm-gun to be fired. 
 A hot dispute began at once, silenced for a moment by the 
 ominous roar of the gun. Vergniaud then argued that the 
 question of the Committee should be adjourned till next day, 
 but that Hanriot should be summoned at once. Danton, in 
 opposing him, urged 
 
 that the question of the Committee was beyond doubt the 
 most pressing one. It had imprisoned men harshly. He 
 neither accused nor defended it, but the Assembly, on the 
 report of Garat, a man of amiable, impartial nature, had 
 released one of the prisoners. Therefore he demanded not 
 its suppression, but its dissolution. It had been created not 
 for its own purposes but for theirs. If guilty, a terrible 
 example must be made of it as a warning to all who dared 
 refuse respect to the people even when revolutionary to excess. 
 The cannon had thundered, but if it was only a warning 
 too grim indeed, too clamorous that all citizens should 
 insist on a striking example being made, Paris had deserved 
 well of the country. His remarks were not addressed to those 
 imbeciles who could only express their own passions, but to 
 men endowed with some political capacity, and he told them 
 that their aim should be to rescue the people from its own 
 rage. The Committee had been so mad as to make fresh 
 arrests. He demanded its dissolution and an inquiry into the 
 conduct of its separate members. They had, in his opinion, 
 been actuated by private animosities. The representatives of 
 the nation should turn to good use the exuberance which 
 bad citizens depicted as so sinister. If any really dangerous 
 men wished to prolong disturbances after justice had been 
 done Paris itself would thrust them back into nothingness. 
 First let them dissolve the Committee, then summon Hanriot. 
 
 Those to whom these counsels of Danton may seem 
 hypocritical or in a bad sense demagogic should remember 
 that Vergniaud a little later declared that that day would be 
 a proof how Paris had loved liberty, that order reigned every- 
 where, that the Sections had deserved well of the country, and 
 should be invited to exercise the same surveillance till every plot 
 was unmasked. 
 
 It was finally on the proposition of Barere, as spokesman 
 
 p 2 
 
212 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 of the Committee of Public Safety, that the Committee of 
 Twelve was abolished, and the Assembly also voted two 
 livres pay per diem to all workmen remaining in arms till 
 order was restored. And so, at half-past nine on the last 
 day of May, the long war between the Girondins and the 
 Mountain seemed ended. Both had been violent, both 
 unscrupulous. But the Girondins had been weak as well as 
 violent, ,and lax where their enemies were vigilant. The 
 triumph of the Mountain was the survival of the politically 
 fittest at that time and under those conditions. Danton had 
 riot raised but had striven to lull the whirlwind. Failing in 
 that, he meant to rule it, 
 
1793 213 
 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 1 793 continued 
 
 MAY 31 JUNE 1 AND 2 COMMUNE AND CONVENTION DANTON'S 
 POSITION OFFERS TO RETIRE CONVENTION SURROUNDED BY MOB 
 ARREST OF MEMBERS 
 
 MAY 31 had dawned amid universal apprehension. In the 
 afternoon Section confronted Section in arms, and a cannonade 
 and pitched battle in the streets seemed imminent. It closed 
 amid universal embraces and cries of * Vive la Republique ! ' 
 The popular demands were apparently satisfied by the sup- 
 pression of the Committee of Twelve. The Committee of 
 Safety had procured this concession to the demands of the 
 Commune, but it had taken no notice of the cry for arresting 
 twenty-two of the Right, and to reassure the bourgeois element 
 in Paris it procured also the Convention's decree that the 
 force at the command of the Department should be ready to 
 be called out at a moment's notice. 1 It had, in short, acted 
 on Danton's principle of restraining the people from outrage by 
 backing up its reasonable demands, and on June i it proposed 
 that a proclamation should be issued, consisting of con- 
 gratulations on the peaceful termination of the struggle with 
 the Committee of Twelve, of salves to the dignity of the Con- 
 vention, and of exhortations against intestine discord at a time 
 of national danger. 
 
 But the extremists on both sides rose on June i in a 
 different frame of mind from that in which they went to bed 
 on May 31, and were each disinclined to listen to the voice of 
 
 M.-T. vii. 145. 
 
214 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 the charmer. Shame, and relief at not having been arrested, 
 emboldened the Girondins. Anger at being balked of half 
 their revenge actuated the fiercer of the Sections. One of 
 them framed a resolution on the night of the 3ist condemning 
 its own leaders not merely the new Commune but TEveche 
 itself for gross neglect of duty, 1 and demanding the election 
 of a more stalwart revolutionary Committee this too in spite 
 of the Commune's attempted arrest of Roland. On the other 
 hand, the Girondins professed to believe that Paris disapproved 
 of the movement of the day before, which was the work of only 
 a few conspirators, and cavilled at the Committee of Safety's 
 proclamation. 2 Lasource proposed an amendment ending 
 thus : ' The Convention is on the watch. It will take measures 
 dooming conspirators to shame, contempt, and death ; ' on 
 which Barere, who had the Committee of Safety's proclama- 
 tion in charge, remarked sensibly : ' If I wished to sound the 
 tocsin I should adopt the amendment of Lasource ; .if I 
 wished to rally all the Departments to Paris, the address of the 
 Committee.' 3 
 
 The Commune had met at 6 A.M., four hours before the 
 Convention. 4 Certain of its members, Henry and Cavaignac 
 among them, were specially told off to report to it hour by 
 hour what went on in the Convention. 5 Its first act in the 
 early morning was to arrest Madame Roland; its next, to 
 draw up an address to the Sections, which, like that of the 
 Committee of Safety, was self-congratulatory and pacific in its 
 tone. By ten o'clock it had become more bellicose, and with- 
 drew the address for further consideration. 6 At ten the Con- 
 vention met, and the Commune, informed of its proceedings 
 by Henry and Cavaignac, resolved between one and three 
 o'clock 7 on more drastic measures, listening to the counsels of 
 its enrages members, led by Varlet, and turning a deaf ear to 
 one who must have hardly known himself in the character of 
 
 1 M.-T. vii. 358. 2 M.-T. vii. 363. s M.-T. vii. 366. 
 
 4 M. xvi. 541. M.-T. vii. 358. 5 M.-T. vii. 323, 367. 
 
 M. xvi. 542. 7 M. xvi. 542. 
 
1713 PROCEEDINGS OF COMMUNE 21$ 
 
 ' Moderate '---Hebert. By three o'clock these measures were 
 shaped into a new address to be sent to the Assembly that 
 evening. 1 Then the Commune adjourned till five. 
 
 On its reassembling the address was read over and a 
 deputation of twelve appointed to take it. But before they 
 started it was announced that the Convention had risen at six- 
 o'clock. 2 Just then Pache came in and said that he, with 
 Marat, had interviewed the Committee of Safety and found it 
 unequivocally anxious for order, and that it had promised to 
 summon the Convention to meet again that evening. 3 For 
 such a decision there was much to be said. The Convention 
 had purposely risen at six o'clock in order to avoid receiving 
 the address. 4 This was a poor trick to play in such circum- 
 stances, and especially calculated to disgust a man like Danton. 
 It infuriated Marat. He urged the people to go themselves 
 with the address and not come away till it was conceded. 
 Probably the Committee of Safety got wind of this counsel, 
 which was a breach of faith on Marat's part, because its 
 promise had been coupled with 'unequivocal' stipulations for 
 order, whereas his words were a direct incitement to disorder: 
 In any case it did not fulfil its promise. 5 But at the sound of 
 the tocsin about one hundred members came to the Assembly 
 at nine o'clock. 6 Immediately afterwards came the deputation 
 from the Commune with its address. The helpless Convention 
 practically threw itself on the mercy of the Committee of 
 Safety by declaring that in three days it should report on the 
 best means of defending the Republic at home and abroad, 
 and on the cases of the members denounced by the Commune, 
 the Commune to lay before it all evidence. At half-past 
 twelve the session ended. But the session of the Commune 
 did not end. Enraged at the Convention's dilatory tactics, it 
 spent all that night in mustering its force of sans-culottes and 
 arranging for their pay and subsistence next day. Its General 
 
 1 M. xvi. 542. 2 Ibid. M.-T. vii. 367. 
 
 * M. xvi. 542. * M.-T. vii. 367. 
 
 * M.-T. vii. 373. Ibid. 
 
2l6 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 Council met at nine in the morning, and at once proceeded 
 to draw up an ultimatum. 1 The Convention met an hour 
 later. 
 
 No stranger spectacle has ever, perhaps, been presented by 
 a great city than that of Paris on this Sunday, June 2, 1793. 
 The extraordinary system of balanced authority resulting from 
 the revolt against Monarchy had culminated in practical 
 anarchy. Paris was in presence of the Convention, the 
 Comite de Salut, the Executive Ministry, the Commune, the 
 Central Revolutionary Council. The Convention, nomi- 
 nally supreme, had devolved all responsibility on the Com- 
 mittee of Safety. The Committee of Safety's sole power might 
 almost be said to consist in Danton's personal influence with 
 the revolutionary party. Two of the Ministers were actually 
 under arrest, yet permitted to carry on their official functions 
 provisionally, Claviere till June 13 and Lebrun till the 2ist. 
 The Commune was divided against itself, Chaumette tearing 
 his hair and protesting against the ultra-revolutionary measures of 
 the Central Council as contra-revolutionary. And that Central 
 Council had also its less extreme and its more extreme 
 members. The only point of union, in fact, was hostility to 
 the Girondin Twenty-two. They were foredoomed by Isnard's 
 madness. There was a sort of tacit compact between the 
 bourgeoisie and the mob that if there were no pillage, and no 
 second 2nd of September, the obnoxious Deputies were to be 
 got rid of. 
 
 Danton was in much the same position and acted much in 
 the same way as in September. It is absurd, as he said him- 
 self, to suspect him of any desire to humiliate the Convention. 
 The most glorious moments of his life had been within its 
 precincts. To this day he is known by the name of ' le grand 
 conventionnel] a name indicating where now was the centre of 
 his fame and strength. Nor did he desire revenge on the 
 Twenty-two. But between their own half-rash, half-craven 
 fatuities, and the relentless rancour of the Ultras, he 
 1 M.-T.'vii. 378-80. 
 
1793 DANTON'S MOTIVES 217 
 
 instinctively steered a middle course. As in September, so 
 now the situation in Paris was dominated by events on the 
 frontiers. This very morning of June 2 came tidings after 
 tidings of disaster or alarm from La Vendee, from Finistere, 
 from Lozere, from Cantal, from Lyons. Nothing seemed more 
 certain than that if street-fighting once began in Paris it would 
 end only in the entry of the allies and the dismemberment of 
 France. Amid all this fury of party it was of that larger 
 danger that he thought most. To save France he might have 
 even sacrificed his friends. To shield his bitter enemies at the 
 peril of France would have been, in his eyes, criminal lunacy 
 So, as the only possible compromise, he acquiesced in the 
 Committee of Safety's suggestion that the Twenty-two should 
 * voluntarily ' resign their seats. He may have even proposed 
 it, for his repeated offers and acts of self-effacement show the 
 too sanguine faith he placed in magnanimous example. On 
 this very occasion Garat had proposed at the Committee of 
 Safety that the most bitter opponents on both sides in the 
 Convention should offer to leave it in order to promote peace. 
 Danton started up, with his eyes full of tears, and said : .' I will 
 go to the Convention and propose it, and offer to go, myself 
 first, to Bordeaux as a hostage for the arrested members.' In 
 the Convention, however, the idea leaked out before anyone 
 made the offer from the rostrum, and Robespierre covered it 
 with ridicule as a snare laid against the Republic. 1 The offer 
 was actually made, however, by Danton and all the other 
 members of the Committee of Safety on the 6th. 2 But 
 Robespierre spoke against it. Petion and Barbaroux wrote 
 against its acceptance, and it came to nothing. 3 To Marat the 
 Committee's suggestion did not commend itself. With more 
 logic than wisdom he contended that accused conspirators 
 ought not to be invited to pose as martyrs. ' Cest a mot ' (he 
 said), ' vrai martyr de la liberte^ a me devouer ' ! 
 
 While the suggestion was being discussed the crowd out- 
 side grew more threatening. Delacroix, DantonV friend, 
 1 M. xvi. 592. 2 M. xvi. 585-6. 3 M. xvi. "587. 
 
21 8 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 protested against its violence, and Danton said that the 
 Committee of Safety would 'avenge vigorously the national 
 majesty, now being outraged.' Delacroix then obtained a vote 
 from the Convention ordering the armed men intruding them- 
 selves into the Assembly to quit its precincts. The order was 
 taken to Hanriot, who sent back a flat refusal, couched, it is 
 alleged, in brutal terms. At last the frightened and wearied 
 Assembly decreed the arrest of all except two of the members 
 of the Committee of Twelve, of the Ministers Lebrun and 
 Claviere, and of twenty-two members of the Right. 1 
 
 Meanwhile the Committee of Safety had sent for Pache 
 and Hanriot. All, or almost all, its members were distressed 
 at the day's events. 2 Cambon charged Bouchotte with 
 connivance. ' Minister of War,' he said, 'we are not blind. 
 I see very well that your subordinates have had a hand in all 
 this.' Delacroix appeared embarrassed, as a man who has won 
 without winning much glory. Danton seemed uneasy and 
 ashamed. When Pache came he brought with him two of the 
 Insurrectional Committee, who declared its readiness to 
 resign the powers given it by the Sections. This was accepted. 
 But Hanriot did not come. He sent an aide-de-camp, and his 
 disrespect indicated the impotence, materially, of the Committee 
 of Safety. All the physical force of Paris was, as Garat says, 
 enlisted on the side of the insurrection. No doubt Danton 
 was ashamed of some of the occurrences of the day. But he 
 was not ashamed of or sorry for its net results. There had 
 been no bloodshed. He said in September that Hanriot, 
 ' with eyes vomiting saltpetre,' had prevented the sacrifice of 
 30,000 lives. But the majority which any day might have 
 reimposed some Committee of Twelve was broken up. He 
 was free to replace the two ejected Ministers by his own 
 friends. We may discredit St. Just, on the one hand, who 
 charged him with having demanded Hanriot's head, and 
 Barere, on the other, who said he wrote with his own hand in 
 
 1 M.-T. vii. 418. 
 
 2 See Carat's account in his Memoires stir la Revolution. 
 
1703 DANTON'S POLICY 219 
 
 the committee-room of Public Safety the petition which the 
 Commune sent to the Convention on May 31. There was 
 nothing to tempt him to the one step or the other. He 
 approved of the insurrection just so far as it checkmated an 
 arbitrary majority. His speeches in the Convention no doubt 
 inspired and encouraged those who brought it about. He 
 considered, with another national leader of our own day, that 
 'a true revolutionary movement should partake both of a 
 constitutional and an illegal character. It should be an open 
 and a secret organisation, using the Constitution for its own 
 purposes, but also taking advantage of its secret combinations. ' f 
 He took one course in the Convention, 1'Eveche another in 
 the streets. It seems improbable that they had in common 
 anything except a common foe. 
 
 1 B. O'Brien's Life of ParnelL 
 
220 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 1 793 continued 
 
 DAN-TON'S SECOND MARRIAGE HIS ENERGY LA VENDEE DIRE STRAITS 
 OF THE REPUBLIC 'LEVEE EN MASSE' ' HATONS-NOUS DE TER- 
 MINER LA REVOLUTION ' ATTEMPTS AT ALLIANCES FOREIGN 
 POLICY WHY IT FAILED 
 
 IN the middle of all these stormy scenes Danton married his 
 second wife, Mademoiselle Sophie Gely. 1 There is a story 
 that his first wife had recommended the marriage. Other 
 stories represent her successor as the owner of a pretty face, 
 and of aristocratic leanings, who, after her husband's execution, 
 was ashamed of his name. 2 Still other stories represent him as 
 so ' molten down in mere uxoriousness ' as to have lost energy 
 for public affairs. Whatever else may be true, that at least is 
 false. Never in all his life was he more energetic. He was on 
 the Committee of Safety and on the Constitution Committee. 
 This meant that in these early days of June he had to work 
 day and night. On the loth eager demands were made for 
 the draft of the new Constitution. Thuriot pleaded for one 
 more hour, saying, ' Le comite a passe la nuit a I 'achievement 
 de son travail? As member of the Committee of Safety he 
 had to attend to the report on the arrest of the members, to 
 the disturbances in the Departments, and to all the letters from 
 arrested Deputies, which, with other matters innumerable, the 
 Convention placed in the Committee's hands. Thus on June 
 
 1 June 17 or June 4. Homme cTEtat, p. 133. 
 
 2 Villiaume, however, Hist, de la Rtv. Fr. b. xvi., says that she re- 
 tained a profound respect for Danton's memory. 
 
1793 DANTON'S ACTIVITY 221 
 
 3 we find the Convention adopting the Committee's schemes 
 for the formation of a company of national artillery in every 
 Department, for sending three companies from Paris to the 
 Pyrenees, for sending Robert Lindet to Lyons, for indemni- 
 fying the people of Nantes for loss inflicted by the rebels, and 
 so on. Of an easy, indolent disposition, and averse to 
 drudgery, Danton could display enormous energy at a crisis. 
 He did so now. He was still chief Tribune of Paris, and he 
 controlled the foreign policy of France. 
 
 The Committee of Safety dated from April 7. As the 
 supreme executive power, with secret-service money at its 
 disposal, it was responsible only to the Convention. And as it 
 deliberated in secret it was to a great extent responsible only 
 nominally. There were other influential men in it, such as 
 Cambon, Barere, Robert Lindet, and Delacroix. Cambon and 
 Lindet were concerned with finance and home affairs, Dela- 
 croix and Delmas with the war, Danton and Barere with 
 foreign affairs. But Danton was indubitably its ruling spirit. 
 He sat in it for three months, and for that space it may be 
 said, roughly, that he governed France. A detailed descrip- 
 tion of events at Paris in April and May was indispensable in 
 order to comprehend his position and character, but it is time 
 now to see what was his policy in the wider sphere which he 
 had already occupied for two months. 
 
 The revolt of La Vendee was perhaps his first anxiety. The 
 people there had originally favoured the Revolution. 1 The 
 suppression of the old taxes and the militia filled them with 
 enthusiasm. But they were attached to their priests, who 
 during 1791 and 1792, sowed discontent and disaffection at 
 nocturnal meetings into which Royalist agents gradually in- 
 sinuated themselves. 2 After Jemmapes was won they were 
 disgusted by the propagandist war. New imposts took the 
 place of old taxes, and when the conscription was being 
 enforced in March 1793 the storm broke. It was never really 
 
 1 S. iii. 374- 2 S. iii. 375. 
 
222 LIFE OF PANTON 1793 
 
 a Royalist, and only partly a religious, movement. Its main- 
 spring was disinclination to military service on the frontier. Of 
 the Royalist element in it Danton had experience when he was 
 Minister of Justice. Informed by spies of the details of 
 La Rouarie's conspiracy, he ordered him to be arrested, and, 
 though La Rouarie himself died, the papers he left behind were, 
 in March 1793, dug tip in a garden by Morillon, whom Danton 
 had set to watch the movement. 1 Thanks to his vigilance, 
 therefore, the Committee of Safety was, as far as La Vendee 
 was concerned, forearmed. There could be no two policies 
 there. It was in rebellion, and the rebellion had to be put 
 down. So had the Girondin resistance now hatching in the 
 south and north. These two were simple if disagreeable 
 problems to be solved. What made the situation of France 
 well-nigh desperate was their coincidence with the disastrous 
 state of the armies. That of Dumouriez was in retreat, dis- 
 organised, suspicious of its officers, without supplies. 2 The 
 armies of the Rhine were in a similar condition. The army of 
 the Moselle numbered only 25,000 men. And now in June, 
 when between sixty and seventy Departments were in revolt 
 against the Government, 3 when Marseilles, Lyons, Toulon, 
 Montpellier, Bordeaux, Nantes were all in arms, and the allies 
 were advancing on the eastern frontiers, the Paris Government 
 seemed shrivelling up in a girdle of fire. To save it Danton 
 resorted to two expedients, public disavowal of the war of 
 propaganda and the levee en masse. The second of these 
 measures he had conceived gradually. ' Ilfautdire a la France 
 entiere, sivous ne volez pas au secours] &c., he said on March 8 ; 
 * Marchons t .us] on the roth ; * Que dira done ce peuple ? Car il 
 est pret ase lever en masse] on the 27th ; 'La France entiere va 
 s'ebranler] on May 8. 
 
 His subsequent declarations, after he had quitted the 
 Committee, were merely repetitions of the same idea. ' II /ant 
 que la nation entiere marche] he said on August i. He devised 
 
 1 Lenox's Danton, c. 14. 2 S. iii. 373. 
 
 3 Meillan, quoted by Lenox, p. 223, says 72. 
 
1793 PROPAGANDISM RENOUNCED 22J 
 
 the idea. His voice instilled it into the Convention. And 
 though the conscripts who were the fruit of it did not win 
 Hondschoote 1 or Wattignies it nevertheless contributed to 
 those victories by ' its powerful moral effect, the soldiers feeling 
 that the whole nation was its rear-guard.' 2 It transformed 
 France into an armed camp. It made the revolt of La Vendee 
 hopeless. It saved the Republic. 
 
 His other expedient, though less imposingly efficient, re- 
 entitled France to the comity of nations. Selfishness had 
 prompted intrigues with her hitherto, but she could not but be 
 regarded by foreign Governments as a rabid wild animal while 
 she proclaimed universal war. Danton had not been a week 
 on the Committee when he reduced her pretensions to reason- 
 able limits. These were his words on April 13 : 
 
 It is time that the National Convention should make it known 
 to Europe that France knows how to combine with republican 
 virtues statesmanship. In a moment of enthusiasm you passed 
 a decree, the motive of which was certainly noble, since you 
 bound yourselves to protect nations resisting their tyrants. 
 This decree would logically imply an obligation to assist an 
 insurrection in China. . . . Let us pass a resolution that we 
 will not meddle with our neighbours' affairs, but that anyone 
 proposing to treat with other nations which refuse to acknow- 
 ledge the Republic shall be punished with death. 
 
 The severity of the last sentence meant nothing. It was 
 merely a rhetorical artifice so constantly resorted to by Danton 
 for silver-coating the main thesis which many of his audience 
 would find so unpalatable. Among them was Robespierre, 
 \vho had just advocated the more sweeping sentence of * death 
 on anyone proposing to treat with the enemy,' and who on the 
 24th attempted to reinvolve the Assembly in a hazier atmo- 
 sphere by declaring all men citizens of one State. But in 
 Robespierre's eyes the Revolution was only in its infancy. The 
 reign of the Saints and of one arch-Saint was to be its final 
 outcome. To end it prematurely would be to nip nascent 
 
 1 M.-T. viii. 366. 2 Michelet, b. xiii. c. ii. 
 
224 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 * virtue ' in the bud. Danton, on the contrary, had learnt much 
 from the popular reaction against France in Belgium and on 
 the Rhine, from the revolt against conscription in La Vendee, 
 from the danger to the Republic which a military adventurer 
 like Dumouriez might threaten. He wished * to arrest anarchy, 
 to reconstitute the State, to convert the Rights of Man into a 
 reality and the Republic into a government, to procure peace, 
 to give security to industry.' l Hatons-nous, mes amis,' he said, 
 1 hatons-nous de terminer la Revolution. Ceux qui font les re- 
 volutions trop longues ne sont pas ceux qui en jouissent? 
 
 In order to procure peace he thought he must procure allies. 
 It is impossible to lay a finger on this or that negotiation and 
 say he prompted it. But in April Lebrun, the Foreign Minister, 
 became merely his subordinate, and in June was under arrest, 
 and Deforguesj his successor, was Danton's protege. 2 . So that 
 all the foreign policy of France was in his hands. What that 
 policy was is to be found in an instruction to representatives 
 on mission issued in May I793- 3 They were to demand from 
 /foreign Courts as essentials, recognition of the Republic, non- 
 interference in the government of France, abandonment of the 
 emigres, and, in the case of Austria, surrender of the Com- 
 missioners seized by Dumouriez. They were to bear in mind 
 that the Republic was intended to resume its old proportions, 
 though for the present compelled by prudence to occupy certain 
 territories. It would attempt a rectification of frontier by 
 indemnities or exchange. It would oppose Austria's exchanging 
 Belgium for Bavaria, but would not oppose the creation of a 
 species of stadtholderate. It would not consent to the partition 
 of Poland, but hoped active intervention might be avoided. It 
 would not restore Savoy and Nice, but would compensate 
 Piedmont by means of a redistribution of the Estates of the 
 Pope, who was to be left simple Bishop of Rome. Lastly, in 
 spite of the bitter hostility of England, attempts were to be 
 niade to come to terms. 
 
 1 S. iii. 383-4. - S. iii. 425. 
 
 3 S. iii. 395- 
 
1793 ABORTIVE FOREIGN POLICY 22$ 
 
 To attain these ends it was hoped that Sweden, Denmark, 
 and Turkey might be induced to form an alliance with the 
 Republic, and that some members of the coalition might, by 
 skilful diplomacy and the lavish use of secret-service money, be 
 induced to withdraw. Alliance with Turkey proved as visio- 
 nary as Polish freedom or friendship with England. Sweden, 
 however, preserved a benevolent neutrality, and the old sus- 
 picious jealousy between Prussia and Austria was rekindled. 
 To carry on this diplomatic campaign a crowd of agents was 
 despatched to the capitals of Europe, 1 and their efforts might 
 have been more positively successful but for the jealousies of 
 the Paris factions, which rendered foreign Courts dubious 
 whether agreements would be binding. 
 
 Danton, moreover, was hampered by his own past. His 
 true character was beginning to be known even to foreigners. 
 'J'ai entenduj wrote Baron d'Esebeck, ' tellement vanter votrc 
 justice et votre humanite que je me jette dans vos bras^ And 
 under the same impression the friends of Marie Antoinette 
 hoped to stir him to save her from the guillotine. 3 But 
 though ' r amour de Pordre, de la justice et de r humanite ' were 
 1 les veritable* sentiments de son caiurj and ' ilvoulait garder toute 
 sa popularite pour ramener avec radresse le peuple au respect du 
 sang et des loisj he was still forced by the exigencies of his 
 position to appear 'barbare pour garder toute sa popularity- ' 4 
 to be, as Gambetta afterwards said was necessary to govern 
 the French, ' violent in language ' while ' moderate in acts,' and 
 it was hard to believe that the same man was in earnest in 
 hoping for peace even with Austria, 5 who still breathed nothing 
 but defiance to the invader and had so long seemed to be the 
 incarnation of the militant genius of France. 
 
 Such incredulity was not lessened by the vigour infused by 
 the Committee of Safety into the armies, which when it was 
 appointed, and necessarily for a considerable time afterwards, 
 were thoroughly demoralised. The Army of the Pyrenees was 
 
 1 S. iii. 417. 2 S. iii. 422. * S. iii. 423. 
 
 4 Carat's Memoires, p. 192. * S. iii. 425. 
 
 Q 
 
226 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 beaten by the Spaniards. The Army of Italy was disorganised. 
 The army of Dumouriez was in retreat. One general, Keller- 
 mann, was under a cloud ; another, Biron, was suspected and 
 transferred to the West ; another, Dampierre, was killed in 
 action. The officers of the Army of the North were of doubtful 
 loyalty. To restore discipline, to prevent treason, to infuse fresh 
 spirit into the soldiers, Commissioners were sent to all the 
 armies. They were on the whole able and strong men who 
 did their work well. Gradually, as the effects of the Commit- 
 tee's sway became felt, the troops recovered confidence, and 
 out of thtir ranks sprang men like Hoche and Pichegru and 
 the great captains of Napoleon. 
 
 In all this work of restoration Danton shared, and over and 
 above this he roused France to the levee en masse, without which 
 it might have been all to no purpose. He was no longer in 
 office when the ebb of defeat became the flow of conquest, but 
 as in 1792 so in 1793, to him more than any man the turn of 
 the tide was due. 
 
1793 227 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 1 793 continued 
 
 ALIENS ILLITERATE VOTERS SPEECH IN CONVENTION VIEWS ON 
 WHOLESALE PUNISHMENT, OFFENSIVE WAR, RIGHT OF SPEECH 
 ATTACKED AT THE JACOBINS NOT RE-ELECTED ON COMMITTEE 
 OF SAFETY DESMOULINS ATTACKS THE COMMITTEE DANTON's 
 LOYALTY TO IT ITS DIFFICULTIES CUSTINE DANTON PROPOSES 
 A PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT DEFENDS GARAT OPPOSES INDIS- 
 CRIMINATE ARREST ON CONSCRIPTION, REQUISITION, DESERTERS 
 r 
 
 THE Constitution which its framers were so eager to hurry into, 
 existence as all-important for the pacification of the country 
 became by the irony of circumstance almost at the outset a 
 dead letter, 1 though acceptance or non-acceptance of it was a 
 convenient shibboleth for testing the loyalty of the Departments. 
 Till rebellion was quelled the one thing needful was by any 
 means, constitutional or unconstitutional, * diriger Paris sur la 
 Vendee j * former une armee centrale de reserve pour retablir la 
 paix interieure? But Danton, knowing the importance of 
 keeping a cheerful countenance, was careful to assume that 
 France as a whole was with Paris. In pursuance of his previous 
 assertions ' that all the Departments execrated dastardly 
 Moderatism ' he refused to accept the intrigues of a portion of 
 Bordeaux as representing the whole city, or admit that the 
 nation would embark on civil war for a few Deputies. And 
 with his usual common-sense he would not assent to a panic- 
 stricken proposal for the banishment of aliens. ' Alien 
 
 1 It was actually suspended, on St. Just's proposal, Oct. 10. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 intriguers should be banished,' he said, ( but it would be un- 
 wise to impoverish their own population and commerce. There 
 were aliens settled and domiciled in France better patriots 
 than numbers of Frenchmen born.' 
 
 Equally sensible was the way he cut the knot as to the 
 mode in which illiterate citizens should vote in the primary 
 assemblies. ' What was wanted was free expression of opinion. 
 Let every man vote as he pleased, orally or by signing his 
 name, the rich man being empowered to write, the poor man 
 to speak.' This has been condemned as an anarchical pro- 
 posal, but short of modern ballot-box devices how better could 
 he have reconciled conflicting opinions ? 
 
 On June 13 he made one of those inspiring appeals to the 
 Assembly which, on the principle that 
 
 The word that moves a nation's heart 
 Is in itself a deed, 
 
 made his friends think 'the acquisition of him worth an 
 army.' 
 
 We are at this moment laying the real foundation of 
 French liberty by giving France^ajepublican CojistitutioA- At 
 the birth of anything great it is with political as with physical 
 bodies, they are threatened with imminent dissolution. Storms 
 surround us. The thunder rolls. But out of its explosions 
 shall emerge the work which will be the glory of the French 
 nation. Remember, citizens, what happened at the time of 
 Lafayette's conspiracy. We seemed in the same position as to- 
 day patriots everywhere trampled on, everywhere proscribed, 
 menaced with the greatest ills, in perils such as seem the 
 inevitable lot of men who engender liberty. Lafayette and his 
 faction were soon unmasked. To-day new enemies of the 
 people have betrayed themselves, fugitives as they are with false 
 names, false descriptions, false passports. This Brissot, this 
 corypheus of the patricidal gang which is about to be ex- 
 tinguished, who boasted of his bravery and his poverty while 
 he accused me of rolling in riches, is now only a wretch unable 
 to escape the sword of the law, and already condemned to 
 arrest by the people as a conspirator. They talk of the 
 insurrection in Paris causing movements in the Departments. 
 I declare before the universe that what happened there will be 
 
1793 SPEECH JUSTIFYING MAY 31 229 
 
 the glory of Our superb city. I proclaim before France that 
 but for the guns, but for the insurrection of the 3ist of May, 
 the conspirators would have triumphed, would have been our 
 masters. On our heads be the guilt of that insurrection. 
 I invoked it myself when I said that if there were in the 
 Convention another hundred like me we would resist 
 oppression, we would found liberty on a basis which nothing 
 could destroy. Remember that you have been told that the 
 agitation in the Departments only arose after the events in Paris. 
 On the contrary, there is documentary proof that the Depart- 
 ments issued a circular inciting to federation and combination 
 before the 3ist. What remained for us to do? To identify 
 ourselves with the people of Paris, with all good citizens ; to 
 tell the story of what had taken place. You know that I more 
 than any man have been threatened with bayonets pointed at 
 my breast. You know that I have sheltered at my own peril 
 men who thought themselves in danger. But it was not the 
 people of Paris who had any design on the liberty of their 
 representatives. They assumed an attitude worthy of them. 
 They rose in insurrection. Be not alarmed at the manifestos 
 of the Departments calumniating Paris. They are the work of 
 a handful of intriguers, not of the citizens. Remember that 
 others like them supported the Tyrant against Paris. Paris is 
 the centre where everything converges. Paris will be the focus 
 in which all rays of French patriotism will concentrate, and it 
 will shrivel with them all our enemies. I appeal for a loyal 
 understanding about this insurrection, which has had such 
 happy results. The people see that the men accused of 
 wishing to gorge themselves with their blood have done more 
 in the last eight days for their good than the Convention, 
 tormented by intriguers, has been able to do ever since it came 
 into existence. Those are the results which you must make 
 patent to the men of the Departments. They are honest men ; 
 they will applaud your wise measures. The criminals in flight 
 have spread terror everywhere they have gone. They have 
 exaggerated everything, magnified everything. But the re- 
 action of the people when undeceived will be all the stronger, 
 and they will avenge themselves on their deceivers. As to the 
 question now before us, I am of opinion that measures must 
 be taken in all the Departments. Twenty-four hours' grace 
 should be given to all officials who may have been misled ; to 
 those who mislead them, none. In Departments where 
 patriot communes are struggling with an official aristocracy 
 
230 LIFE OF DAXTON 1793 
 
 these officials should be displaced and true republicans placed 
 in their room. Finally I appeal for a declaration by the 
 Convention that there would have been an end of liberty if 
 there had been no insurrection on May 31. 
 
 Citizens, no weakness ! Make this solemn declaration to 
 the French people : that this horde of scoundrels which desired 
 the restoration of the nobles had no desire for a Constitution. 
 Bid them choose between this faction and the Mountain. 
 Say to Frenchmen : ' Resume your indefeasible rights. Range 
 yourselves round the Convention. Prepare to accept the 
 Constitution about to be offered to you, the Constitution 
 which, as I have said already, is a battery to rain on the 
 enemy bullet- showers which will destroy them all. Prepare an 
 army, but an army against the enemy in La Vendee. Stifle 
 the rebellion there and you will have peace.' When once the 
 people are informed of this last phase of our revolution they 
 will no more allow themselves to be beguiled ; they will listen 
 no more to calumnies against a city which engendered liberty, 
 which will triumph with liberty, and with liberty will be 
 immortal. 
 
 But though he blew a trumpet-blast of this kind when he 
 meant to encourage his own party and overawe any waverers 
 of the Plain he continued to draw a distinction between 
 masses and individuals, insisting that punishment should 
 always, if possible, be confined to the latter. When it was 
 proposed to treat as traitors two battalions of the Gironde 
 which had expressed a wish to go home from the army, he 
 argued that it was not the battalions but a few seditious 
 members of them that should be punished, and that the 
 Minister of War should be left to deal with the case ; that it 
 was unwise to denounce whole battalions or to declare whole 
 Departments rebels. And he proposed that every primary 
 assembly should send two armed men to Paris to form a 
 central army of reserve a shrewd mode of raising troops and 
 obtaining hostages at one stroke. 
 
 Equally shrewd were the views he expressed in the debates 
 on the Constitution with regard to offensive war and 
 declaration of war. 
 
1793 OPINIONS ON WAR 231 
 
 Offensive wars they renounced, but when a neighbouring 
 nation was making preparations for war, taking aim, so to 
 speak, it would be absurd to abstain from firing first, from 
 occupying the territory of others for a time, or from taking 
 any measures dictated by self-preservation and not lust of 
 empire. 
 
 As to declaring war, 
 
 it would be suicidal to forbid the Executive taking preliminary 
 steps of precaution, and even at once attacking another nation 
 assuming the offensive, but that ought not to prevent the 
 people being convoked to decide on continuing or ending the 
 war. 
 
 When Marat was assassinated, and Fauchet was denounced 
 as Charlotte Corday's accomplice at the Jacobins, Danton, 
 while expressing his own opinion of the man, urged that he 
 should be allowed to speak before being condemned. This 
 may have been considered by his enemies as one sign of many 
 showing that he was becoming a * Moderate,' and mutterings 
 began to be heard at the Jacobins, where jealousy of the 
 Convention was rife, that he was keeping aloof too much from 
 their meetings. At last, on it being publicly stated that he 
 had recommended a suspected person to the Minister of 
 Marine, he thought it necessary to defend himself. After ex- 
 plaining the facts of the case he said 
 
 The necessary result of my being chained to the Committee of 
 Safety is that men with their own petty interests to serve have 
 been let loose against me, circulating a quantity of small 
 scandal absolutely without foundation, which finds credence 
 only with the weak-minded or those who lend too ready an ear 
 to it. 1 - . 
 
 A few weeks later, on an attack being made upon the Com- 
 missioners of the Convention, he told the Club * that it should 
 only present itself to the Convention to proclaim something 
 important and novel which would result in useful discussion 
 and salutary legislation.' 2 
 
 1 Journal de la Montagne quoted by Bougeart, p. 268. 
 * Ibid. Bougeart, p. 285. 
 
232 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 This was subsequent to the reconstitution of the Committee 
 of Public Safety on July 10. Danton on that day was not re- 
 elected. The proposal for reconstitution was made by a 
 member not named by the Moniteur, but it was supported in 
 a bitter speech by Camille Desmoulins, who charged the 
 Committee with gross incapacity. Camille Desmoulins was by 
 nature disputatious. Politics interested him mainly as sub- 
 ject-matter for logomachy. He liked to lecture other people 
 a friend, perhaps, by choice was hardly happy when not 
 wrangling, and was addicted to cramming his sense of infalli- 
 bility, inspired by his own pamphlets, down his neighbour's 
 throat. But he would hardly have assailed Danton personally, 
 and may have even thought that if the pack were shuffled it 
 would leave his friend with a better hand. It was, in fact, 
 elicited from him afterwards that, as his manner was, he had 
 been making a personal retort under cover of a patriot's 
 anxiety, and was in reality assailing an individual member of 
 the Committee rDelmas one of the two members whose 
 special duty it was to attend to the army and the war. 
 Danton, moreover, newly married, and for months immersed 
 in harassing toil, may have preferred a less onerous dignity in 
 prospect and have let it be known he did not seek re-election. 
 For, as Marat said, ' ses inclinations naturelles f emportent loin 
 de toute idee de domination? ! Or, again, those who were angry 
 at Camille's speech may have revenged themselves on his 
 friend in concert with those levelling Jacobins who bore 
 Danton a grudge. But if so, and if they thought he was 
 assuming airs of superiority, why did they not prevent his 
 election to the presidency of the Assembly on the 25th? 2 
 
 In any case Danton neither showed any resentment nor 
 changed his tone in the Convention. He knew, if Camille did 
 not, the enormous difficulties with which the Committee had 
 to contend, difficulties not to be surmounted in a month or 
 two, and not the more easy to surmount while incessant 
 reports were being required from it by the Convention. The 
 1 Bougeart, p. 265. 2 M. xvii. 234^ 
 
1793 ADVICE TO EXTEND COMMITTEE'S POWERS 233 
 
 revolt of the great southern towns, Marseilles, Lyons, 
 Bordeaux, Montpellier, Grenoble, Toulon ; of Caen and 
 Evreux in the north ; the capture of Saumur and Angers by 
 the Royalists in the west ; of Conde", Mayence, and 
 Valenciennes by the allies ; victories of the Spanish invaders 
 and of the Prince of Orange; the siege of Dunkirk; the 
 .Girondin General Wimpfen's threat that he would visit Paris 
 with 60,000 men, were perils all of which confronted the 
 Committee during June and July. And at the end of July, 
 Custine, general of the Army of the North, who had obtained 
 leave to come to Paris, was accused of treason. Danton did 
 not join in the gossiping charges brought against him, but he 
 said it was plain something must be done at once, for the 
 Army of the North must have a general, and that the 
 Minister of War and the Committee ought immediately to 
 examine into the charges. 
 
 Such an event, occurring at a crisis so momentous, was 
 probably the immediate cause of his speech on August i, in 
 which he advocated the increase of the Committee's power. 
 After saying that * there would be no success till, remembering 
 that the Committee was the fruit of freedom and what good 
 work it had already done, they developed its capabilities 
 to the maximum,' he proceeded thus : 
 
 This Coburg who is marching into your territory is doing 
 the Republic excellent service. What happened last year is 
 repeating itself to-day. The same dangers menace us. But 
 the people for it has accepted the Constitution is as 
 vigorous as ever ; I swear it by the sublime enthusiasm we 
 have just witnessed. By this very act of acceptation it has 
 bound itself to burst forth in its whole volume against the 
 enemy. Therefore let us make war like lions. Why do we 
 not institute a provisional Government to second by powerful 
 measures the national energy ? l 
 
 He went on to protest 
 
 that he himself would not enter a Committee with such extended- 
 powers, preferring to remain independent and in a position to 
 
 . M. xvii. 295. 
 
234 LIFE OF DANTON 1703 
 
 spur on the Government unceasingly. But if they heeded him 
 they would turn the Committee into a provisional Government 
 and the Ministers into its subordinates, its head clerks ; would 
 supply it lavishly with funds, for a vast expenditure in the 
 cause of liberty would be merely money put out at interest, and 
 without a host of agents they would be unable to contend against 
 Pitt on equal terms; would therefore place 50,000,000 francs 
 at the Committee's absolute disposal, yes, to be expended if it , 
 thought fit, on a single day ; would, as soon as the harvest was 
 over, muster the whole nation, of which the enemy had only as 
 yet seen the advanced guard, which was chafing at inaction, 
 which longed to hear the tocsin summoning it to arms ; would 
 order returns to be made of all grain in the country and all 
 arms ; and would allot to the Committee 100,000,000 francs 
 more for guns and muskets and pikes ; and in every town of 
 any size not an anvil should be struck but in forging weapons 
 of war. They were at least rid of intriguers now, and the 
 enemy could no longer, like Dumouriez, boast that half the 
 Convention was at his beck. The people had faith in them 
 and they should be worthy of its confidence, for if their weak- 
 ness stood in its way it would save itself and they would be 
 disgraced for ever. 
 
 In advocating a vast expenditure Danton preached what 
 he had practised, having on June 2 sent Deforgues to see if a 
 golden salve of 250,000 francs would heal the eruption in 
 Calvados, 1 and on some members now declining pecuniary 
 responsibility he added 
 
 that public men must not fear calumny, that while solemnly 
 pledging himself never to be a member of the Committee which 
 he was suggesting he had not shrunk from such responsibility 
 in 1792, when singly he supplied the momentum which sent 
 the nation to the frontiers, and when he had said, ' Let them 
 calumniate me. What does it matter? Though my name 
 should be disgraced I will save liberty'; but that the 
 50,000,000 francs might be deposited at the national treasury 
 and drawn from only by order of the committee. 
 
 This speech produced a great sensation in the Assembly, but 
 Robespierre opposed it and Danton's proposals were referred 
 
 r Michelet, b. xii. c. i. 
 
1793 COUNSELS OF MODERATION 235 
 
 to the Committee of Safety for consideration. The idea, how- 
 ever, rapidly took root. Within a fortnight the Committee had 
 accepted the 50 millions from which it shrank on the ist, and 
 its autocracy practically dates from that day. 1 
 
 On August 5 Danton left the Chair to interpose generously 
 and successfully in behalf of Garat, Minister of the Interior, 
 who, having been arrested and summoned to the bar of the 
 House, was assailed by Collot d'Herbois. 2 As the rescued 
 Minister passed by the Chair, Danton whispered to him, 'Write 
 a perfectly simple circular. Throw your literary production 
 into the fire. Reserve all that for history.' The incident is 
 illustrative of the character of the two men, and Danton's 
 estimate of Garat, ' // aime la Revolution J ' // a montre de la 
 faiblessej has been endorsed by history. 
 
 On the 1 2th he again interfered on the side of moderation. 
 A Deputy belonging to the six thousand members of the 
 Primary Assemblies, who had come to Paris for the national 
 fete, called on the Assembly to decree a levee en masse, and at 
 the same time seize all suspects, enrol them, send them to the 
 frontiers, and there place them in the forefront of the battle. 
 In his usual fashion when about to attenuate too Draconic 
 proposals Danton began with some generalities to which no 
 Draco could take exception. 
 
 The Deputies have just suggested 'terror' towards the 
 enemy within our gates. Shall we disappoint them ? No ! 
 No amnesty for any traitor ! Honest men do not favour knaves. 
 Let us signalise the people's vengeance by summary punish- 
 ment of domestic traitors, but let us try and turn this memor- 
 able day to account. You have been told that the levie en 
 masse is wanted ; and so assuredly it is, but it should be made 
 in an orderly way. 
 
 He went on to suggest that the Deputies of the Primary 
 Assemblies should, each man of them, incite twenty others to 
 come in arms and enlist, that they should be invested with 
 authority to make inventories of arms, food, and munitions of 
 
 1 .Michelet, b. xiii. c. i, * M. xvii. 304, 
 
236 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 war, to enrol forty thousand recruits for the armies of the 
 North, and to announce the Constitution to the enemy by 
 cannon-shot. And he felt sure, he said, that the Deputies, of 
 whose energy he had seen many proofs, would swear to rouse 
 their fellow citizens to action when they went home. 
 
 The enthusiasm with which this sagacious appeal was 
 received pledged each Deputy to a missionary zeal for the 
 conscription. Taking advantage of it the orator insinuated 
 counsels of moderation. He demanded 
 
 the arrest of all persons suspected jus tfy but this should 
 be done more circumspectly than hitherto, when, instead of 
 seizing great criminals, real conspirators, men who were less 
 than insignificant were arrested. It would never do to send 
 them to the armies, where they would be more dangerous than 
 useful. Let them be confined and kept as hostages. 
 
 In this characteristic speech he advocated moderation, but 
 for men shirking their share of the war's burdens either in 
 purse or person he had no indulgence. Of the rich he said 
 
 If the tyrants were getting the better of us we should 
 surpass them in daring, should devastate French soil before 
 they could traverse it, and the rich, vile egotists that they are, 
 would be the first victims of the people's wrath. You, who 
 hear me, report what I say to the rich men of your communes. 
 Say to them, 'What are you hoping for?' See what would 
 happen if France were overrun. On the most favourable 
 supposition you would have an imbecile's regency, a minor's 
 rule, the ambition of foreign Powers, the partition of the land, 
 eating up your property ; you would lose more as serfs than by 
 all the sacrifices you could make to maintain yourselves free. 
 
 And then he insisted on the agents of the Primary Assemblies 
 being authorised to enforce conscription and requisitions 
 vigorously. 
 
 For soldiers wishing to quit the service when every man 
 was wanted he advocated not the blind sentence proposed 
 against the men of Bordeaux, but still stern severity. 
 
 Any citizen deserting the flag before someone has been 
 found to take his place should be punished with death. 
 
1793 STERN COUNSEL 237 
 
 Equally stern was the view he took of the conduct of the 
 merchant-princes of Marseilles, who had 
 
 exulted in the abasement of their priests and nobles in the 
 hope of getting fat on their wealth, and had then basely turned 
 against the Revolution, to which they owed that wealth. They 
 should be treated like those priests and nobles and pay the 
 penalty of their treason with confiscation or death. 
 
 Having said so much to urge on the levee en masse, he 
 warned the Committee to beware 
 
 of its being abused or misused. It should be regulated 
 methodically, and men should not be concentrated unless 
 where they could be properly organised. By all means have 
 numbers, but only efficient numbers, directed to points where 
 they were imperatively needed ; not a mere herd which it 
 might be impossible to equip, to feed, or to employ properly. 
 But, lest enthusiasm should be damped by delay, instant 
 measures should be taken for the proper provision of a force 
 amply sufficient for all contingencies. 
 
238 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 1 793 continued 
 
 DISINTERESTEDNESS OF DANTON DAMAGING TO HIM EFFECTS OF' 
 MARAT'S MURDER AND CAPTURE OF TOULO^J SCARCITY IN PARIS 
 DANTON'S ISOLATION CARAT'S INTERVIEW WITH HIM THE MAXI- 
 MUM ' SANS-CULOTTE ' ARMY DANTON'S SPEECH HE SUPPORTS 
 COMMITTEE OF SAFETY HIS SPEECH ON THE WAR IN LA VENDEE 
 HEBERT ILLNESS RETIREMENT TO ARCIS 
 
 THOUGH the Revolutionary Tribunal was only, as Danton 
 said, the ' least bad ' remedy, when France was honeycombed 
 with Royalist and Girondin disaffection, it was beyond all 
 doubt efficacious, having, in fact, all the force of a civilian 
 court-martial. Equally efficacious for the national defence 
 was the levee en masse, the dictatorship of the Committee of 
 Safety, and, taken as a whole, the missions of members of the 
 Convention to the armies. If the speeches quoted in previous 
 chapters prove anything, it is that it was always for France 
 Danton was thinking as he urged these measures, and not for 
 himself. He might natter Paris, he might parley with men he 
 disliked, he might court popularity, but it was for public not 
 personal ends. 
 
 Such disinterested patriotism placed him at a terrible dis- 
 advantage amid the bitter rivalries and selfish ambitions by 
 which he was surrounded in September. He had come into 
 collision with Robespierre, and, worse offence still in Robes-^v 
 pierre's eyes, he had shielded him with his own popularity^ 
 He had come into collision with the Hebertists, who professed 
 to look on him as a ' Moderate.' He was suspected, and on 
 good grounds, of being opposed to the execution of the 
 Girondins. He was susp2cted on slenderer evidence of wishing 
 
1793 THE SOCIAL SPECTRE 239 
 
 to spare Marie Antoinette. 1 At the very moment when his 
 policy seemed on the verge of success two events occurred 
 which robbed him of the power to control the vast engine 
 which he had set in motion, the stupid murder of Marat on 
 July 1 2 and the betrayal of Toulon to the English in August. 
 His most insidious peril arose out of the * terra incognita au 
 dela de Marat? Marat had always admired Danton, and when 
 their formidable leader had fallen, the rest of the pack with 
 whom he himself, had he lived, would have had to fight, 
 sprang at once at the nobler quarry. Marat's murder, too, 
 begat murder, sealing the fate of the Girondins and the 
 Queen, and reawakening all the worst passions of the Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 On the other hand, the capture of Toulon revived the 
 hopes of the Royalists. They could not conceal their trans- 
 ports. They sang derisive songs about the levee en masse and 
 applauded anti- revolutionary sentiments at the theatre. 2 They 
 formed plots to rescue the Queen. 3 And, rashest of all schemes, 
 they essayed to * royalise ' the lowest of the mob, to overthrow 
 by means of the people the people's leaders. There seems to 
 have been considerable scarcity of food in Paris, a scarcity 
 exaggerated and manipulated by Royalist agents. Trading on 
 such genuine distress as was produced in many poor families by 
 the absence of their bread-winners at the war, they raised a cry 
 for the * bread of the King.' 4 Discontent was fanned by the 
 Hebertist press, which was at this time a great power in Paris, 
 the paper most read by the mob being the * Pere Duchesne.' It 
 began to attack Danton. To be confronted by the social 
 spectre at Paris while there was civil war in the Departments 
 was a terrible misfortune. Whether owing to real or manu- 
 factured discontent, Robespierre for the moment seemed 
 ' suspect,' and Chaumette was insulted in the streets. 5 The 
 mob invaded the Commune. The Commune in its turn in 
 
 1 S. iii. 423. 2 Michelet, b. xiii. c. iii. s Ibid. 
 
 4 Ibid. L. Blanc, b. x. c. vii. Cf. M. xvii. 504, 576, 580, 584, 591. 
 
 5 M.-T. viii. 370. 
 
240 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 company with the mob invaded the Convention, where it now 
 regarded the Committee of Safety as its enemy and rival. 
 
 Amid all this maelstrom of misery and faction Danton was 
 weakened in the Sections, the clubs, the Commune, and the 
 Convention by the absence on mission of so many of the 
 strongest men of the Mountain. When Thuriot resigned his 
 seat on the Committee, September 20, 1 the only Dantonist left 
 on it was Herault de Sechelles. But already Danton was and 
 felt himself alone. Garat has described in memorable lan- 
 guage his condition of mind. He had gone to Robespierre 
 first, on behalf of the Girondins, and finding him obdurate 
 went to Danton. 
 
 He was ill. I was not two minutes with him before I saw 
 that his malady consisted mainly in profound grief and conster- 
 nation at what was threatening. * I shall not be able to save 
 them ' were his first words, and as he said them this strong man 
 whom they compare to an athlete lost all self-control, and big 
 tears ran down the face which resembled a Tartar's. He still, 
 however, cherished some hopes for Vergniaud and Ducos. 
 
 Even Robespierre, it should be observed, would at this 
 time have been content with the deaths of Brissot and 
 Gensonne. The Girondins, in fact, committed suicide, so to 
 speak, twice over, first in running away and raising a rebellion, 
 and secondly by the craven fashion in which they conducted 
 .the rebellion. While their antagonists were present in person 
 with every army, and scouring all France for money and men, 
 the Girondin leaders were, said Charlotte Corday, when asked 
 what they were doing, engaged in * composing songs and pro- 
 clamations to recall the people to union ' (' Us font des chansons, 
 des proclamations pour rappeler le peuple a C union '). 2 The 
 Hebertists were now mingling cries for their blood with the 
 people's demand for bread. 
 
 Danton had, we have seen, laid great stress on getting in 
 the harvest before taking away the labourers for the war, and 
 on obtaining returns for the whole stock of grain in the 
 
 1 M. xvii. 708. - M. xvii. 246. 
 
1793 SCARCITY IN PARIS 241 
 
 country. The harvest of 1793 was, happily for France, a very 
 good one. Thuriot on August 26 said there was a sufficient 
 supply for two years. 1 But it was only just reaped, and from 
 other causes the temporary pinch was severe. That day a 
 piteous deputation from Vincennes came to the Convention," 
 and holding up some black bread said it was the best they 
 could get, and even of that there was not enough to keep them 
 from starving. And they asked why they might not purchase 
 in the Paris market if Paris merchants might buy up wholesale 
 all the corn in the neighbourhood of Paris. Thuriot in a 
 later debate put the same case tersely when he said that 
 country people were absolutely starving with heaps of wheat 
 close at their doors, and that cornering must be stopped by 
 legislation. A Committee of Five was appointed to consider 
 the whole question. 2 Danton was one of the Five, and on 
 September 3, after their proposals had been submitted to and 
 discussed by the Assembly, a decree was passed fixing for the 
 whole Republic a maximum price for corn, wheat, and the 
 carriage of them. This had no effect on Paris discontent, 
 however calculated to ameliorate the condition of Vincennes. 
 On the 5th Chaumette with his following demanded that the 
 poor of Paris should be fed, and, in order to provide food, 
 that a revolutionary force should be created for collecting it, 
 accompanied by a tribunal for the punishment of cornerers 
 and speculators. Danton's appearance at the rostrum was the 
 signal for applause from the Assembly and from the deputations, 
 which for several minutes prevented him from beginning his 
 speech. He said 
 
 that the Convention would be wise to turn to good account 
 the people's sublime enthusiasm. When of its own accord it 
 wished to march against the enemy no other measures were 
 needed than those which itself proposed. Let there be a 
 revolutionary army at once. The seditious plots at Paris need 
 cause no alarm. No doubt there was an attempt to extinguish 
 the flame of liberty where it glowed brightest, but the sans- 
 culottes existed still and were the vast majority. They only had 
 
 1 M. xvii. 504. 2 Ibid. M.-T. viii. 368. 
 
 R 
 
242 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 to be organised and they would confound all these machinations. 
 But a revolutionary army was not enough ; the Convention 
 must be itself revolutionary. First it must remember that men 
 living by the sweat of their brows could with difficulty attend 
 their Sections. They ought to be paid for attendance twice a 
 week. Secondly, the manufacture of arms should not cease 
 till every citizen had his musket. For every sans-culotte there 
 should be a musket nay, a cannon and he should be told 
 that the fatherland entrusted it to him and expected his service 
 whenever it was required ; that each musket should be looked 
 on as a sacred thing, sooner than lose which a man should lose 
 his life. But, thirdly, there were traitors among them to be 
 punished, and the Revolutionary Tribunal should be (as. had 
 been suggested) split into sections, that every day some 
 aristocrat, some malignant should lose his head for his crimes. 
 Lastly, the Convention should recognise gratefully, should pay 
 homage to the sublime patience with which starving men bore 
 privations which were the work of conspirators against the 
 Revolution, men who would assuredly achieve the liberty for 
 which they were content to starve. 
 
 Danton sat down amid even greater applause than that 
 which had greeted his appearance. The whole house cheered. 
 The spectators rose up waving their hands and hats, and on 
 his proposals being adopted there were loud cries of ' Vive la 
 Republique ! ' 
 
 Several points about this speech deserve notice. Its tone 
 of trust in the people, its flattering identification of the 
 Assembly with the people, was the result of and the shrewdest 
 way of checkmating Royalist manoeuvres in Paris. Secondly, 
 to pay and arm the sans-culottes of Paris was at once to provide 
 bread for them and to provide a garrison. Thirdly, the 
 sanguinary menace held out to 'aristocrats' a term which, it 
 should always be remembered, had by this time become a 
 colloquial synonym for 'traitors ' can only be justly estimated 
 in connection with the tidings told that day and the day before 
 in the Convention, 1 how Toulon had been betrayed to the 
 
 1 Cf. M. xvii. 572, 574, 575, 589, 591, and M. Stephens' Orators of Fr. 
 Rev. ii. 26. 
 
1793 THE MAXIMUM 243 
 
 English and the King proclaimed there, how the rebels of 
 Marseilles were boasting of the aid of thirty thousand English 
 and Spaniards, and were threatening terrible reprisals, and how 
 the Austrians had been tearing out the tongues and cutting off 
 the hands and feet of French soldiers. Danton's language was 
 mild in comparison with that which such reports elicited from 
 men like Billaud-Varenne, who said, * What is more important ' 
 (than the question of food} l is to efface all malignants from the 
 face of the earth ; ' ! 'all your enemies ought to be arrested this 
 very day,' &c. ; and like Barere, who said, ' Plains la terreur 
 a rordre du jour. 1 
 
 Similarly it must be remembered, with regard to the ' maxi- 
 mum,' that however indefensible, if judged by maxims of 
 political economy, it was not only defensible but perhaps the 
 only way of coping with present needs and dangers. We in 
 our own day and in times of peace have begun to hear talk of 
 legislation being necessary against 'corners,' but in France, 
 where the only food to be got was from French soil, the most 
 summary way of ensuring its approximately equal division was, 
 short of absolute confiscation, probably the ' maximum.' It was 
 thoroughgoing, not squeezing one class only, but millers, farmers, 
 bakers, carriers, gardeners, &c., all alike ; and it was in a way 
 economical, for, as a corollary of it, no one was allowed to buy 
 more than a fixed amount of bread per diem. And in its pri- 
 mary object it was efficient. It kept down the price of the 
 necessaries of life. It was, in short, the ' least bad ' method 
 that could be devised for unique emergencies. 
 
 Lastly, if, in view of Danton's despondency, exhibited a 
 few days later to Carat, we are inclined to be surprised at the 
 extraordinary enthusiasm for him in the Assembly, we have to 
 consider that the Hebertists had not yet ventured to attack him 
 openly, and that as an orator he, like Mirabeau, to the last 
 dominated his audience. While he was regarded by some men 
 as a ' Moderate,' whose day was over, there were more to whom 
 any great movement of the Revolution seemed incomplete in 
 1 M. xvii. 581. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 which he did not share. ' DantonJ said one of them next day, 
 ' a la fete revolutionairej and added that he should be placed 
 on the Committee of Safety, whether he consented or not. 
 
 Danton, however, had made up his mind to abide by his 
 oath never to re-enter the Committee, though he gave it un- 
 grudging support. It had on August 29 been indirectly 
 assailed by Billaud-Varenne, 1 who proposed that a special com- 
 mittee of surveillance should be appointed, to hold, as it were, 
 a brief for the guillotine against the Executive. Robespierre 
 immediately scented mischief, and spoke of 'a perfidious 
 system of paralysing the Committee.' As was his wont, Danton 
 contrived to extract something useful out of this opposition, 
 observing 
 
 that while so many Committees must clash together and cancel 
 each other the Committee of Safety might very well be increased 
 by three members, whose special duty it should be to supervise 
 the Executive. On the one hand the Executive, with eleven 
 armies to look after, had a difficult task. On the other the 
 Committee of Safety had passed important measures enough 
 to occupy all its existing members, so that it might well be en- 
 larged. 
 
 Again, on September 6 he proposed 
 
 that the Co nmittee should be given any sum it asked in order 
 to inspirit the Departments and countermine the enemy. Like 
 a crank applied to a great wheel it would give a great momentum 
 to the machine of State. 2 
 
 And on the i3th he recommended that the Committee 
 of Safety should appoint the Commissariat Committee, in 
 order to ensure the proper equipment of the Army of the 
 North. 
 
 French soldiers were not like Austrian ; they were not 
 thrashed with a stick for a speck of dirt on their uniforms, but 
 they could not go without clothes at all. All such sub-com- 
 mittees ought to be reconstructed by the Committee of Safety. 
 No one could suspect his motives, for he would not himself serve 
 on it. He meant to be the spur of all Committees, but to serve 
 oh none. 
 
 1 M. xvii. 527. * M. xvii. 596. 
 
1793 ROSSIGNOL 245 
 
 At the Jacobin Club he took the same line. Rossignol, the 
 general in La Vendee, had been denounced by the Dantonist 
 Bourdon of the Oise, and defended by Robespierre. Danton 
 had little to say about the personal questions at issue, but he 
 availed himself of the opportunity to make some very sound 
 criticisms of the way in which the war was conducted. 
 
 It was ridiculous of Bourdon to describe the Vendeans as 
 a set of swine, whom it was no honour to beat. They were men, 
 and men who could fight well. But it was true that the war 
 had been mismanaged. What was wanted was a central not a 
 piecemeal war. Separation of the army inevitably presaged 
 defeat. There were also too many commissioners in La Vendee. 
 Their orders clashed, and some might, like the generals, be 
 suspected of prolonging the unhappy struggle for their own ends. 
 Two or three were quite enough. Responsibility ought to be 
 thrown on Rossignol, the Commander-in-Chief, but with re- 
 sponsibility he should be given a free hand. 
 
 Rossignol was one of those bragging incapables brought by 
 politics rather than military skill to the front ; but this was not 
 clear at the time, as it is now. Undoubtedly Danton placed 
 his finger on the two weak spots in the plan of campaign, and 
 undoubtedly also he was right in saying that there should be one 
 general, and he responsible. Having done so, though Bourdon 
 was one of his own friends, and Rossignol one of the party 
 assailing him, he did not assail Rossignol, remembering, it may 
 be, how too hastily he had associated himself with clamour for 
 Montesquieu's recall on the eve of that general's successes. 
 Moreover, the Hebertists were at this time at the height of their 
 power, and Danton, when the fate of Vergniaud and his friends 
 was in suspense, would not wish to come to extremities with 
 them unless sure of his ground. Hubert was now alluding to 
 him in the ' Pere Duchesne ' as the friend of Dumouriez. Dan- 
 ton insisted on a retractation, 1 and the two men were out- 
 Avardly reconciled. But, placable and tolerant though he always 
 showed himself, it is hard to believe that he ever said of Hubert 
 
 1 Lenox, p. 240* 
 
246 LIFE OF DAN TON 1793 
 
 ' ce garfon-la que faime beaucoup? l David, the Robespierrist 
 who stood gloating over his fate as he was led to execution,? 
 and whom he called * valet J is the author of the story, the in- 
 tended effect of which must be judged by Hebert's venomous 
 assertion at the Jacobins that he himself thought Danton sin- 
 cere, but that Fabricius had afterwards said to him, 'You 
 think him reconciled to you. He is not. Be sure he will do 
 all he can to ruin you.' 2 There could have been no real re- 
 conciliation. ' Danton has not in the Convention satisfied the 
 expectations of patriots,' said Hebert. And there is a story of 
 Danton stamping as if crushing an insect and saying that that 
 was how the Hebertist gang should be treated. 3 
 
 But though he disdained such enemies he must have been 
 glad to be quit of them for a time, when he obtained leave of 
 absence on October 12, 'in order to reestablish his health 
 in his native air.' 4 As we hear nothing of him during the 
 three weeks preceding that date he must have fallen ill in the 
 last week of September, and was convalescent when he 
 reached Arcis. A letter from a neighbour of his appeared in 
 December in the ' Journal de la Montagne,' 5 attesting that he 
 was seen there daily in the dress and with the appearance of 
 an invalid ; and according to tradition he spent his time feeding 
 ducks in the Aube, planting trees in the meadow behind his 
 house, and planning a garden. 6 Other pleasant stories are 
 told of him which seem to belong to this peaceful interlude in 
 a life of storm that it was his custom to take his meals with 
 the windows of his house open, through which the people of 
 Arcis were fond of gazing at their famous townsman ; that 
 when a traveller asked for a draught of wine he would insist 
 on his being given wine of better quality if he were an old man ; 
 and that he tore up his shirt into bandages for a workman's 
 wound. 
 
 It is strange that any but natural reasons should have 
 
 1 Journal de la Montagne, quoted by Bougeart, p. 295. 
 
 8 Bougeart, p. 294. 3 Gronlund's a Ira, p. 180. 
 
 4 M. xviii. 103. s Bougeart, p. 307. ' Lenox, p. 246. 
 

1793 RETIREMENT TO ARCIS 247 
 
 been manufactured for this brief sojourn at Arcis. He was 
 worn out by four years of fierce and incessant conflict, the last 
 twelve months of which had been one perpetual fever, and the 
 fate in store for the Girondins along with the unabated rancour 
 of parties in Paris filled him with forebodings. 
 
 Twenty times (he said) I offered the Girondins peace. 
 They would have none of it. They refused to trust me that 
 they might not forgo the right to ruin me. It is they who 
 have driven us into the arms of sans-culottism, which 
 has devoured them, will devour us all, and end by devouring 
 itself. 
 
 But he did not leave his post till his work was done. He 
 pinned his faith on the Committee of Safety, and he left it 
 supreme, for on the i4th the Committee of General Security 
 had on his motion been renewed and filled with its nominees. 1 
 These two Committees, with the Revolutionary Tribunal, the 
 Law of the Suspect (to be used with circumspection), the 
 levee en masse, and the maximum, were the machinery with 
 which he trusted to beat back the allies and beat down treason. 
 September returned him the firstfruits, October the full harvest 
 of the seed he had sown. Hondschoote was won before he 
 left Paris. The news of Jourdan's defeat of the Prince of 
 Orange at Wattignies, of the recovery of Roussillon from the 
 Spaniards, of Kleber's crowning victory over the Vendeans at 
 Cholet reached him in October at Arcis. 2 
 
 1 Morse Stephens' Fr. Rev. ii. 543. 
 
 2 Cholet practically decided the war. (Cf. M. Stephens, ii. 265.) 
 Dahton (cf. next chapter, first paragraph) must have regarded it as Barere, 
 speaking for the Committee of Safety, did Oct. 23, 1793 (M. xviii. 195), 
 when he said, l je viens vous annoncer aujourcThui que la Vendee rfest plus. ' 
 
248 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 1 793- continued 
 
 DAN TON'S IDEAL OF GOVERNMENT WHY NOT REALISED RETURN 
 FROM ARCIS REPLY TO HEBERTISTS ANTI-RELIGIOUS MASQUERADES 
 CONDEMNED CLEMENCY ' RESPONSIBILITY OF MINISTERS 
 'CLEMENCY' AGAIN ULTRA-REVOLUTIONARY EXCESS CONDEMNED 
 SCENES AT THE JACOBINS DANTON'S SPEECH ROBESPIERRF/S 
 PERFIDIOUS DEFENCE 
 
 THE system Danton had built up laboriously he nevertheless 
 regarded only as temporary, as the ' least bad ' expedient 
 possible at the moment. With the victories of Wattignies and 
 Cholet the need of it became less pressing, and .it might be 
 hoped would soon cease to exist and be succeeded by the 
 government of his dreams. What that was we know from Garat. 
 /""it was to establish the reign of law and equal justice ; to extend 
 clemency to enemies ; to pardon and restore to the Conven- 
 tion its expelled members ; to give the Constitution practical 
 effect ; to offer peace to all foreign nations ; to restore 
 commerce by releasing it from all restrictions ; to stimulate 
 magnificently arts and science ; to break down all barriers 
 separating Department from Department ; and to substitute 
 for factitious citizenship of cards and tickets the living citizen- 
 ship of the members of an honestly ruled republic. For this 
 noble ideal ' il se montra barb are pour garder toute sa popu- 
 larite, et il voulait garder toute sa popularite pour ramener avec 
 adresse le peuple au respect du sang et des lois.' 
 
 Already he had previsions that his dream would not be 
 realised. Only a dictatorship could have made its fulfilment 
 possible. Only an unscrupulous man of genius could have 
 
1795 GOVERNMENT BY GUILLOTINE 249 
 
 made himself dictator. Robespierre developed an unscrupu- 
 lousness born of fanatical belief in his monopoly of all virtue. 
 But he had no genius. Danton had genius, and constructive 
 genius ; but while ready to sacrifice scruples, even to the point 
 of indifference as to his own fair fame, in order to destroy de- 
 spotism, nothing would induce him to undo the work of his 
 own hands and assume in any shape that personal ' tyranny ' 
 which he had denounced in all his speeches. Nor if he had 
 had the will would he have been able to find a way. The 
 ' general middlingness ' of the men of the Revolution, and their 
 jealousies, combined with reactionary precautions against 
 Monarchy, resulted in such an extraordinary system of 
 balanced authority that only a successful soldier, and only he 
 when society had become exhausted and sickened by the 
 Terror, could have had much chance of a successful coup tfctat. 
 Danton never thought of making the attempt. Till now the 
 instruments he had devised worked as he meant them to work. 
 Trials were fair, executions comparatively few. 1 Between 
 April and September only 38 people were condemned to death 
 for treason ; but in October the guillotine-list increased with a 
 bound, and still went on steadily growing when according to 
 his intentions it should have diminished. But it was not till 
 his execution in April 1794 that the numbers, which in August 
 1793 had been 5, and in September 17, and even in February 
 only 73, shot up to the appalling total of 257, and in the 
 following month to 358.2 
 
 The figures of October, 50, contrasting with 1 7 in September, 
 including, as they did, the Girondin Deputies, determined Dan- 
 ton to interfere. It has been handed down in his family that he 
 was walking one day in his garden, when someone came running 
 with a paper in his hand and exclaiming, * Good news ! good 
 news ! ' ' What is that ? ' said Danton. ' The Girondins have 
 been beheaded.' * Do you call that good news ? ' ' Well, were 
 they not factious ? ' * Factious ! Have we not all been factious ? 
 
 1 Prods, p. 62. 
 
 * Morse Stephens' Fr. Rev. ii. 334, 544. 
 
250 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 We deserve death as much as they, and probably we shall have 
 to travel the same road.' 1 Even before he left Paris, on Souber- 
 bielle exclaiming, 'Ah, if I were Danton,' he said, * Danton sleeps, 
 he will awake ' ; and while walking with Desmoulins along the 
 Quai des Lunettes he pointed out to him the deep red re- 
 flection in the river of the sun going down behind the hill of 
 Passy, and said, ' Look, the Seine runs blood. Ah, too much 
 has been shed. Come, take up your pen again ; write and 
 demand clemency. I will support you.' 
 
 But it was too late. His self-denying ordinance which ex- 
 cluded him from the Committee of Safety was suicidal Quixotry. 
 When, after six weeks' absence, he returned to Paris it was 
 to find that the Government had been proclaimed revolu- 
 tionary till the conclusion of peace. He came back in gloomy 
 mood, declaring, it is said, that the execution of Marie 
 Antoinette was fatal to all chance of coming to terms with 
 foreign Powers, and that Custine had been sentenced on in- 
 sufficient evidence. 2 But he was alone, or nearly alone, in 
 these sentiments. He had never had a party, though a certain 
 number of men more or less influenced by his sentiments may 
 be termed Dantonists. He had been in the habit of trusting 
 to himself, and he thought now that ' he would go, as at other 
 times before,' and bend the Convention and the Committee as 
 he would. But the men of the Committee, Robespierre and 
 his alter ego Couthon, murderous Billaud, murderous St. Just, 
 were his enemies there, as the Hebertists were in the streets, 
 and instead of being able to save the lives of others it was soon 
 plain that he would have to fight hard for his own. 
 
 He spoke in the Convention, for the fourth time after his 
 return, on November 26, and his first words referred evidently 
 to Hebertist slanders. A complaint against the authorities of 
 Tours for traducing good citizens supplied him with a text. 
 He said 
 
 the Committee of Safety must settle such things. The Con- 
 vention by this time should know how to govern and to silence 
 1 Lenox, pp. 250-1, 2 jf xx ,6 2> 
 
1793 COMMON-SENSE 251 
 
 calumny. Some people were dubbed ' emigrants to Switzer- 
 land,' others endowed with castles in Spain. The Committee 
 was, or presumably was, chosen from the elite of the Conven- 
 tion. It should examine all such denunciations. Meanwhile 
 their time would be better occupied in more useful work. 
 
 Clearly there was thunder in the air. 
 
 Immediately afterwards he spoke again on the subject 
 of priests coming to the Convention to abdicate their 
 functions. 
 
 Such scenes should be reserved for the Committee. So 
 much ecstasy over men merely swimming with the stream was 
 superfluous. There was no call to show more respect to 
 atheist priests than they had shown to bigoted ones. Instead 
 of these anti-religious masquerades in the Convention they 
 ought to be at work. People wanting to dedicate to the 
 country church plate should not make sport or glorification 
 out of it. They had something else to do than receive these 
 interminable deputations with their floods of tautology. Every- 
 thing even congratulations, must have an end. 
 
 He went on, as anyone accustomed to his oratorical 
 methods can, by reading between the lines, detect, to insinuate 
 ever so dexterously the first breath of clemency, * couvrant sa 
 pitie sous des rugissementsj ' pour faire plus de peur enfaisant 
 moins de ma/.' 
 
 As to what they call a foreign conspiracy, the Committees 
 should prepare a report. The public willed, and with reason, 
 that terror should be the order of the day. But it wished it 
 to be aimed at its proper object, at aristocrats, egotists, con T 
 spirators, and traitors. It did not wish to inspire fear in men not 
 naturally gifted with much energy, but serving their country to 
 the best of their ability, however small. A tyrant, after having 
 overthrown the League, said to one of the chiefs he had con- 
 quered, as he made him sweat, ' I want no other vengeance 
 than that.' But the time was not come when the people could 
 show clemency. The time of inflexibility and national 
 vengeance was not over. The people required a potent, 
 terrible strength. That strength it possessed, since with a 
 breath it could create and overthrow its magistrates and repre- 
 sentatives. They were politically a National Committee,' 
 
252 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 cheered by the approval of the people. And the people wished 
 them to essay all means for enforcing and bringing into action 
 republican government. The Committee of Safety should pay 
 less attention to trivialities, and devote itself to these larger 
 aims. The people had long had to do everything itself. It 
 was all very well for the representatives to bow before the 
 people's sovereignty, but they should associate themselves with 
 its glory and anticipate and direct its noble movements. The 
 Committee of Safety, in concert with the Committee of General 
 Security, should promptly report on the conspiracy, and on 
 the means of instilling force and energy into the Provisional 
 Government. 
 
 The import of these utterances, in spite of their somewhat 
 Cromwellian circumlocution, was plain enough to his audience. 
 Some of them would, no doubt, * shake the head and smile 
 with pity, as at the speech of a man apparently condemned by 
 everyone,' for such Camille Desmoulins said was the Assembly's 
 attitude to Danton a day or two later. Fayau, a Montagnard, 
 jumped up and complained that 
 
 he has spoken of clemency, tried to draw distinctions between 
 our enemies, a most dangerous thing to do now. As for me, 
 I think that anyone, whoever he may be, who has done nothing 
 for liberty, or has not done all he could, deserves to be 
 accounted an enemy to it. 
 
 Danton at once appealed to and recommenced his 'ru- 
 gissements.' 
 
 It is not true that I said the people were inclined to indul- 
 gence. On the contrary, I said the time for inflexibility and 
 national vengeance was not over. I wish terror to be the 
 order of the day. I wish stringent penalties, terrifying punish- 
 ments, for the enemies of liberty, but for them only. 
 
 The sterner fanatics who listened to him may well have 
 puzzled over the significance of some things which he had said, 
 but they must have pondered in their hearts, most of all, his 
 last four words. Fayau returned to the attack. 
 
 Danton talks of essaying republican government. I totally 
 differ from him. Is not that a suggestion that the people may 
 
179& CLEMENCY 253 
 
 approve of a different sort of government ? But the oath we 
 swore, ' A Republic or death,' was no idle oath. We are for a 
 Republic still. 
 
 Danton shortly answered that this was to twist awry the 
 sense of what he had said. He was, and always should 
 remain, a republican. All he wanted was to give effect to 
 the Constitution. 
 
 Something of self-defensive autobiography may also be 
 detected in another speech in which he argued for Ministers 
 being held responsible. 
 
 I too have been Minister. Every evening I made myself 
 acquainted with the net result of the work done in my office. 
 Its head clerks had to present a summary of it. A Minister's 
 first duty is the daily supervision of his subordinates. 
 
 In other words, he asserted that he had been a hard-working 
 servant of the State, not the indolent do-nothing which men 
 like Fayau represented him to be. 
 
 Two days later he. drove the thin end of the wedge of 
 clemency a little deeper. Some commissioners in the Depart- 
 ments had announced that in their districts failure on any 
 one's part to bring in his gold or silver plate to be exchanged 
 for assignats would be punished with death. Danton said 
 that 
 
 it was impossible to show too much severity about such 
 measures, especially in the case of their colleagues. Now the 
 backbone of federation was broken revolutionary measures 
 ought to be the necessary consequence of existing laws. The 
 Committee had felt the necessity of supplementing revolu- 
 tionary measures, and had issued decrees accordingly. From 
 that moment the man posing as ultra-revolutionary would work 
 definitely more harm than pronounced opponents of the 
 Revolution. They ought to manifest the utmost displeasure 
 at anyone exceeding the limits he had just defined. They 
 ought to lay down that no one had the right arbitrarily to 
 enact a law against anyone ; and should safeguard the 
 principle that a law could only emanate from the Convention, 
 which alone had been entrusted by the people with legislative 
 powers. Commissioners like those inculpated should be 
 
254 LIFE OF DANTON J793 
 
 recalled forthwith. And no representatives of the nation 
 should in future issue enactments except in strict conformity 
 with the instructions of the Committee of Safety. The pike 
 was, no doubt, useful for destruction, but for constructing and 
 consolidating the social edifice the compass of reason was 
 wanted. 
 
 This speech, illustrative of and consistent with Danton's 
 conduct before the September massacres and before June 2, 
 was too sensible to excite much open animadversion, but 
 Fayau again made some objection, to which Danton replied 
 
 that he would have their policy 'revolutionary,' though the 
 very soil of the Republic were annihilated thereby, but a little 
 prudence would not be amiss after so much vigour, and that a 
 combination of the two would work best for the national 
 weal. 
 
 On the next day a citizen came to the bar of the Conven- 
 tion and proceeded to recite a poem in praise of Marat, to 
 which probably the other Deputies would have listened with 
 much boredom, no doubt, but still would have listened. 
 Danton cut him short. * Marat had his good qualities, but 
 after his apotheosis as patriot it was useless to listen every day 
 to funeral panegyrics and bombastic orations on him.' Here 
 again he made himself the mouthpiece of common-sense, but 
 it was common-sense which some of his listeners knew how to 
 use to his prejudice. 
 
 On December 3 he had to stand on the defensive at the 
 Jacobins. A demand was made that the Convention should 
 supply meeting-places for each popular society in the Depart- 
 ments. Danton opposed. He said such societies 
 
 had their natural rights and needed no stimulus from Govern- 
 ment. No doubt the Constitution should be in abeyance 
 while revolutionary measures were imperative, but he thought 
 there should be a wholesome distrust of men trying to goad the 
 people beyond the limits of the Revolution, and proposing 
 ultra-revolutionary measures. 
 
 : Coupe of the Oise retorted that the people could do what 
 
.1793 SELF-DEFENCE AT THE JACOBINS 255 
 
 it liked with its own property and assign convenient meeting- 
 places where it thought proper. 
 
 Danton said Coupe was putting into his lips poison ; he 
 had no wish, nor had he said a word to infringe the absolute 
 independence of the popular societies ; and then, replying to 
 some hostile sounds made on his rising 
 
 I heard some uncomplimentary remarks. Already grave 
 charges have been brought against me. I claim the right to 
 clear myself before the people, who can easily be made to see 
 my innocence and my love of liberty. I summon all who may 
 have conceived reasons for distrusting me to specify their 
 accusations, for I wish to answer them publicly. I have been 
 met with marks of hostility on mounting the rostrum. 'Have 
 I, then, lost the look of a man who is free ? Am I no longer 
 he who stood at your side in the hour of danger ? Am I no 
 longer the man whom you have often embraced as your 
 friend, and who would die with you ? Have I not been made 
 the target of persecution? I was one of Marat's boldest 
 champions. I call to witness the shade of the Friend of the 
 People in my justification. You will be amazed, when I 
 initiate you into my private life, to see that the colossal 
 fortune attributed to me by men who are as much your 
 enemies as mine dwindles to the modicum of property I have 
 always possessed. I defy my ill-wishers to produce against me 
 proof of any crime. All their attempts will fail to overwhelm 
 me. I want to stand face to face with the people. You shall 
 judge me in its presence. I will no more tear out a page of 
 my life than you will one of yours destined to make, the 
 annals of liberty immortal. 
 
 It is significant that the Moniteur does not report the 
 remainder of his speech, which was a reply to the charges of 
 embezzlement brought against him, with reference to which he 
 .demanded the appointment of a Committee of Twelve, by 
 whom he might be examined in public. But he was .a 
 dangerous orator to provoke. The phrases which in print 
 have an air of bombast were perhaps the most effective when 
 thundered by his powerful voice and charged with unstudied 
 
256- LIFE OF DAN TON 1793 
 
 emotion. Now, as always, he carried his hearers away, or all 
 of them except one ; for 
 
 On the other side uprose 
 Belial, in act more graceful and humane ; 
 But all was false and hollow, though his tongue 
 Dropt manna and could make the worse appear 
 The better reason. 
 
 Robespierre knew by the cheers amid which Danton sat 
 down that he must be careful. But none the less he felt that 
 his hour was at last come. Danton had once upon a time 
 defended him. He would now defend Danton. 
 
 He began by enumerating all the current gossip about 
 Danton, as if in irony irony which, as subsequently he 
 advanced it all in bitter earnest, was only assumed as a means 
 of bringing such talk from the background into the front. 
 With this end he unfolded a catalogue of charges that 
 Danton had * emigrated ' to Switzerland ; had shammed illness 
 to conceal his flight ; had aimed at being regent with Louis 
 XVII. as king ; had been once on the point of proclaiming 
 him ; had been chief of the conspiracy ; that not Pitt nor 
 Cobourg, nor England, nor Prussia, nor Austria was the real 
 enemy, but Danton ; that the Mountain was his accomplice ; 
 that there was no need to trouble about foreign agents or 
 imaginary conspiracies in a word, that he was the man who 
 ought to have his throat cut. 
 
 Then, with hypocrisy involved in hypocrisy, he hinted how 
 impartial he was in discrediting such charges. The Conven- 
 tion knew his disagreements with Danton ; that at the time of 
 the treason of Dumouriez his own suspicions had anticipated 
 Danton's; that he had reproached him with not pursuing 
 Brissot and his accomplices quickly enough ; but that on his 
 oath he had reproached him with nothing else. 
 
 In less than five months he was to represent as mortal 
 crimes what he now alluded to as merely disagreements 
 between friends. 
 
 After proceeding to say that all these calumnies were really 
 
1793 ROBESPIERRE 'DEFENDS' DANTON 257 
 
 the work of nobles and priests, he uttered words by which he 
 stands self-convicted of hypocrisy and mendacity, whether they 
 were false or true. 'I may deceive myself about Danton, 
 perhaps, but seen in his family circle he merits nothing but 
 eulogy.' This is the man whom he afterwards described as 
 having before this time laughed at the name of virtue, identified 
 it with gross excess, surrounded himself with rascals because 
 he was so tolerant of vice, and as destitute of all ideas of 
 morality. 1 But we know that it was what he now said of 
 Danton's family life which was the truth. 
 
 Then he diverged, as was inevitable, to what was a more 
 interesting topic even than treacherous defence of Danton 
 himself : ' Danton wishes to be judged ; let me be judged 
 too ' and ended by saying that aristocratic journals were the 
 sources of all the stories to Danton's discredit, and that anyone 
 there having anything to say against him should get up and say 
 it, for this was the place where the whole truth should be told. 
 Did he expect some Fayau or Coup to rise to his summons ? 
 If so, they were overawed or unwilling to pull the chestnuts out 
 of the fire. There rose instead that brave man Merlin of Thion- 
 ville, who remarked bluntly, ' What I have to say is that Danton 
 rescued me from the clutches of Judge Lariviere, that on 
 August 10 he saved the Republic with his "Dare, dare, dare." 
 There you have Danton.' 
 
 And so the matter ended for the time, the President giving 
 to Danton the fraternal accolade amid tumultuous applause. 
 Many may have thought Robespierre's speech sincere. Did 
 Camille Desmoulins think so ? He wrote of it as equal to the 
 oratory of Mirabeau, and loaded with praise the hero who had 
 come to the defence of the Horatius Codes of the Revolution 
 in his hour of need. Camille Desmoulins was a feather-headed 
 man, but it is possible he may have purposely tried to nail 
 Robespierre to his ' Not guilty,' having prevision of the time 
 when, on the same evidence, he would demand an opposite 
 verdict. Did Danton think so? Thinking Robespierre less 
 1 Bougeart, p. 358. 
 
 S 
 
258 LIFE OF DANTON 1793 
 
 capable he may have thought him more honest than he really 
 was. He undervalued the force of the man ; he said of him, 
 it seems, ' that he was not fit to boil an egg.' 1 Robespierre 
 had come to measure all men by himself, all opinions by his 
 attitude towards them, all events, pursuits, interests, creeds by 
 the importance they assumed in his own eyes. In him was 
 virtue. Therefore opposition to him was vice. And vice 
 must be guillotined. Female adoration intensified his egotism. 
 He was for ever in the pulpit and always preached from one 
 text. Danton, tired of his monologues, ' laughed at virtue '- 
 that is to say, at Robespierre's virtue and said * He who hates 
 vice hates men ' 2 that is to say, a Robespierre has no bowels 
 of compassion. But Robespierre failed to appreciate such 
 quotations or to see the point of such jokes. Men of his 
 disposition resent jokes. He intended to destroy Danton as 
 soon as he safely could. Danton, like other people, was, 
 though bored, still influenced by self-righteous pretensions, 
 which if persistently urged generally do impose on others. 
 Thinking him too self-righteous, he thought him on the whole 
 well-meaning and loyal to the Republic. And we, if we had 
 only Robespierre's speech on this occasion to judge by, might 
 think so too. But littera scripta manet. He did not say what 
 he really thought of Danton because the time was not yet. 
 Calculating and cautious, he knew how to bide that time. 
 But if the Jacobins had hooted instead of applauding the great 
 orator he might have taken a very different tone and grappled 
 with him at once, before demolishing Hebert. 
 
 However that may be, this scene at the Jacobins seems to 
 have been regarded as a reconciliation between the two men, 
 who had become estranged, though without open quarrel. 
 
 Robespierre ; b. xi. c. xviii. * S. iv. 61. 
 
1793-4 259 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 1793-4 
 
 DECLINING INFLUENCE VIEUX CORDELIER DESMuULINS AND PHILIP- 
 PEAUX ATTACKED AT THE JACOBINS DANTON'S APPEAL DESr 
 MOULINS AND ROBESPIERRE DANTON FOR RESPONSIBLE EXECUTIVE 
 ROBESPIERRE AND FABRE D S EGLANTINE DANTON's INDEPEN- 
 DENCE AND COMMON-SENSE LEGENDRE AND HEBERT 
 
 IN spite of this temporary triumph at the Jacobins Danton's 
 influence was on the wane. It had always been greatest at 
 times of great national danger. As danger became less and 
 the petty interests of factions or individuals became the 
 questions of the hour, he stood aside, partly because he was not 
 a party man, partly from disgust. This very aloofness damaged 
 him. Conspirators thought he was conspiring. Friendlier 
 critics thought him lazy. When he did speak it was still with 
 the double object of supporting the Committee of Safety and 
 urging moderation. He advised fresh taxation of the rich 
 whose children emigrated ; but he wished them to be regarded 
 not as all equally incriminated, but as three classes, the guilty, 
 the doubtful, and the innocent. 1 He defended the memory 
 of Dampierre when he was said to have been a traitor. But 
 he would not support Merlin of Thionville, his friend, when 
 he proposed the irregular promotion of a soldier for bravery. 
 ' It would lead to abuses. No promotion should be made not 
 previously submitted to the Committee of Safety/ He still 
 resolutely supported the Committee, because the military section 
 of it was doing its work so well, and because he still hoped to 
 modify the action of its terrorist members, who attended to 
 
 1 M. xviii. 6 1 6. Cf. Michelet, b. xv. c. ii. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 LIFE OF DANTON 1793-4 
 
 civil matters, by his own voice at the Jacobins and by Camille 
 Desmoulins' pen in the ' Vieux Cordelier.' 
 
 The first number of the * Vieux Cordelier ' appeared on 
 December 5, the second on the loth, the third on the i5th, 
 the fourth on the 2oth 'that divine cry,' writes the great 
 historian, * which will touch the human heart for ever.' l It 
 was rather the consummate presentation of a pathetic case by 
 skilful counsel. In any case its effect was prodigious. Men 
 stood in a long queue to take it from the printer's hands, and 
 some of them thought themselves lucky to get copies at a 
 louis apiece. 2 But, while hope shone into the prisons and 
 into the hearts which had shuddered at the ever lengthening 
 lists of the guillotine, tigers like St. Just and Billaud felt they 
 were being robbed of their prey, and Robespierre saw that 
 Virtue could never triumph if such a premature pact were 
 made with Vice. 
 
 On the 23rd there was a stormy scene at the Jacobins. 
 Some unnamed member gave vent to indignation at the 
 epidemic of Moderation, and in particular fastened on Camille 
 Desmoulins for expressing pity for the Girondins. Then 
 Levasseur furiously assailed Philippeaux for his exposure of 
 Ronsin and Rossignol. Danton interposed to procure 
 Philippeaux a hearing. Philippeaux said that a measure of 
 which he was in charge had been the means of reducing 
 Levasseur's income, and this was the real cause of his 
 animosity. Shouts of ' No personalities ' greeted this remark, 
 and amid a scene of great tumult Danton spoke again. 
 
 The Romans discussed in public both great matters and 
 personal ones. But they forgot their private encounters when 
 the enemy was at their gates. They strove then only to 
 surpass one another in generous ardour to repulse the hordes 
 of their assailants. The enemy is at our gates now, yet we 
 go on rending one another. Is a single Prussian slain by all 
 our altercations ? 
 
 It was the old theme once more, and once more his 
 1 Michelet, b. xv. c. i. a Ibid. 
 
1793-4 HEBERT AND DESMOULINS 26l 
 
 audience responded to the familiar voice. But experiences of 
 this sort lured him on to over-confidence. ' // se croyait fort 
 comme Herculej says one writer. 1 ' Tua te vis perdet,' quotes 
 another. 2 'They would not dare,' he himself said before his 
 arrest, and ' We will see Jiow these fellows will appear before 
 me ' as he was being led into the presence of his judges. 3 
 
 Soon afterwards he intervened again between Desmoulins 
 and Hubert. He complained 
 
 that when general interests and the public welfare were at 
 stake there was nothing but hindrance and private squabbles. 
 Ought patriots to torment patriots ? Time would show which 
 of them was right and which was wrong. But the society was 
 met for business. Let it proceed to business and leave personal 
 quarrels to the guillotine of public opinion. Patriots ought to 
 come to a compromise when they differed, for behind the 
 scenes were their enemies profiting by such discord. They 
 ought to subordinate their personal animosities to the interests 
 of all. 
 
 This time he sat down without a cheer, whereas Collot 
 d'Herbois, with his ' Nous avons eu trop de clemencej was 
 applauded. It was as if he had said, ' Nous avons eu trop de 
 Danton} Robespierre on this occasion sided with Hubert and 
 Collot d'Herbois, and rebuked his own brother for a spirited 
 speech which elicited laughter at the expense of Hebert, who 
 sat lifting up his eyes to heaven at the speaker's wickedness 
 and muttering, ' Eh, Dieu / Veut-on w? assassiner aujour- 
 dhuiV He was unfortunate in his imprecations. 'Justice 
 Jacobins, justice ! ' he shouted ; ' I am charged with being an 
 impudent robber.' ' So you are,' interrupted Desmoulins, and 
 he held out extracts from the Treasury records showing that 
 Hubert had been paid 60,000 livres of public money for copies 
 of the ' Pere Duchesne ' worth 1 7,ooo. 4 Desmoulins had reason 
 
 1 Vilate, Bougeart, p. 317. 
 
 2 Courtois, Claretie's Desmoulins > p. 471. 
 
 8 Ambroise Pantin's Rapport stir le jugement de Danton-Lacroix. 
 Quoted Procts, p. 555. 
 4 M. xix. 151. 
 
262 LIFE OF DANTON 1793-4 
 
 for assuming the offensive then, since Nicolas, the Robespierrist, 
 had a fortnight before said of him that for a long time he had 
 been within * a close shave ' of the guillotine, and Nicolas and 
 Hebert had both demanded his expulsion from the society. 
 With his name too Hebert coupled three other Dantonists, 
 Philippeaux, Bourdon, and Fabre d'Eglantine Philippeaux, 
 who had denounced one incompetent general, Rossignol ; 
 Bourdon, who had denounced another, Ronsin ; and Fabre 
 d'Eglantine, of whom he said ' serpent ruse, il se replie en cent 
 fafons. n If Fabre d'Eglantine and Desmoulins had had fewer 
 private enemies it would have been better for Uanton. It is 
 even possible that his studiously impersonal and conciliatory 
 language might have gradually rallied the soberer members of 
 the Convention and the Committee to unite against the enrages 
 if it had not been for Desmoulins' pen, the point of which was 
 like a barb fetching blood. Danton no doubt prompted the 
 { motive ' of the ' Vieux Cordelier ' but he must have groaned 
 over many of the passages on which Desmoulins most plumed 
 himself, and perhaps never saw the most acrid of them in 
 advance, for Desmoulins seems to have guarded some of the 
 sheets as jealously as an opera-manager guards a catching tune 
 before a first night. His literary vanity and inveterate delight 
 in inflicting a sting did, in fact, infinite mischief to the noble 
 cause for which otherwise he pleaded so nobly. Danton found 
 himself exposed to incessant cross-fires at a time when the air 
 was surcharged with passion from which he most desired to 
 keep it free. Ronsin and Vincent were arrested on Decem- 
 ber 17.2 On December 26 the Jacobins, at Hebert's instiga- 
 tion, decreed that action should be taken in the matter of 
 Nos. 3 and 4 of the ' Vieux Cordelier.' 3 That same day in the 
 Convention Barere alluded to 'periodical writers who un- 
 wittingly perhaps and unintentionally reinvigorate the contra- 
 revolutionary party and rekindle the ashes of the aristocracy,' 
 and by the fresh oiling of its weathercock the Convention knew 
 foul weather was expected. 
 
 1 M. xix. 27. 2 Ibid. xix. 4. 3 M. xix. 89. 
 
1793-4 ROBESPIERRE AND DESMOULINS 263 
 
 On the 3ist Desmoulins' expulsion was demanded at the 
 Jacobins, and Hubert coupled with his name those of Bourdon 
 and Fabre d'Eglantine. 1 On January 5 occurred the scene 
 between the two Robespierres, Hubert, and Camille Des- 
 moulins, already related. On the yth Desmoulins mounted 
 the rostrum at the Jacobins to apologise, it was thought, for 
 the * Vieux Cordelier,' instead of which he launched off into a 
 discourse about Philippeaux. Such obliquity angered Robes- 
 pierre, who proceeded to lecture his irritable hearer as if he 
 were a spoiled child, telling him he was carried off his head 
 by the great sale of his pamphlets, twitting him with his 
 classicalities, and indulging in terribly bad puns suggested by 
 the words philippic and Philippeaux, finally demanding that 
 the notorious Numbers should be burned ! 
 
 ' That's all very fine, Robespierre,' broke in Desmoulins, 
 ' but I will answer you like Rousseau, " to burn is not to 
 answer." ' 
 
 A Pope confuted by a text from St. Peter might share 
 Robespierre's feelings. 
 
 'How dare you,' he snarled, 'persist in defending writings 
 over which the aristocracy gloat? Listen, Camille; if you were 
 not Camille one would not be so indulgent to you. Your 
 mode of justifying yourself convinces me of your bad intentions. 
 " To burn is not to answer," indeed ! ' 
 
 ' But, Robespierre,' said Camille innocently, ' I don't 
 understand you. How can you say only aristocrats read my 
 sheets ? The Convention, the Mountain read them. They 
 are not aristocrats. You condemn me here, but have I 
 not been at your house and read you these numbers, begging 
 you as a friend to be good enough to teach me the way I 
 should go ? ' 
 
 Such ironical assumption of a child's manner to a peda- 
 gogue irritated Robespierre still more. 
 
 * You have not shown me your numbers,' said he ; ' I only 
 1 M. xix. 127. 
 
264 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 saw two. I could not read the others, as I don't want to take 
 sides in quarrels. One would have said I had dictated them 
 to you.' 
 
 What Desmoulins would have further replied to this un- 
 consciously comical supposition will be never known, for 
 Danton interposed. When Desmoulins said to Hebert, 
 
 If foreigners wish to vilify the Republic, don't you know 
 they insert fragments of your writings in their journals ? As if our 
 people were as stupid and ignorant as you would have Mr. Pitt 
 believe them to be ! As if your filthiness were the nation's ! 
 As if a Paris sewer were the Seine ! 
 
 Danton laughed, no doubt, with the rest of the world. But 
 Robespierre, and * bad intentions ' ! That was a different 
 matter, entailing different consequences. He hastened to 
 stop the combat, but could not refrain from falling in with 
 Desmoulins' impersonation of the child. 
 
 ' Camille,' he said, * ought not to be frightened by the 
 somewhat severe lesson Robespierre's friendship has just read 
 him. Citizens, justice and calmness should always rule your 
 decisions. While judging Desmoulins take care lest you inflict 
 a fatal blow at the liberty of the Press.' 
 
 If Robespierre had not actually settled the fate of Danton 
 in his own mind before, most people conversant with his 
 character will be inclined to suspect that he settled it as he 
 walked home from the Society between eleven and twelve 
 o'clock that night. Danton, however, had been rendering an 
 open outbreak harder to compass by his speech in the Con- 
 vention the same afternoon. Cambon had complained that 
 there was no getting accounts from the War Office. Danton 
 said 
 
 it was no doubt an abuse, and the Minister of War ought not 
 to dip into the national purse at pleasure, but nothing should 
 be done precipitately. The matter should be left to the Com- 
 mittee of Safety. Europe stood astonished at the way the 
 Government was worked by the Committee, which was in fact 
 the Assembly. The Executive should be remodelled. He 
 was convinced that a deliberative council was bad in principle. 
 There ought to be a responsible War Minister, a responsible 
 
1794 ROBESPIERRE AND FABRE D'EGLANTINE 265 
 
 Minister of the Interior, and the Committee of Safety ought to 
 frame the action of the Government. 
 
 It is noticeable that again he was not cheered, but the 
 sense of his advice was recognised, and the Assembly at once 
 adopted resolutions in accordance with it. 
 
 Next day, amid profound silence, 1 the third number of the 
 ' Vieux Cordelier ' was read at the Jacobins. On the reader 
 taking up the fifth, Robespierre said 
 
 it was useless to read it, that Desmoulins and Hubert were in 
 his eyes equally to blame, and that Hebert wished the eyes of 
 the world to be fixed on himself, instead of thinking of the 
 national welfare, but that there were worse things in the back- 
 ground. Pitt and Cobourg were at work to dissolve the 
 Convention, and how ? By means of the too violent and the 
 too clement parties, by means of the stranger within their gates 
 (Clootz), by means of certain knaves seeking to resuscitate 
 Brissotism. There was a plot on foot ; thirty scoundrels were 
 at work. There were two plots : one against the Convention, 
 one to deceive the people, 
 
 and so on. 
 
 The dramatic point in his speech was reached when Fabre 
 d'Eglantine, bored to death in reality, or pretending to be so, 
 rose up in the middle of it to leave the hall. Robespierre 
 asked the Society to stop him, and Fabre d'Eglantine seems 
 then to have scrutinised his face through an opera-glass. ' I 
 demand,' said Robespierre, c that this fellow, whom one never 
 sees without an opera-glass in his hand, enter into an explana- 
 tion.' Fabre d'Eglantine naturally asked what he was to 
 explain, but said he had nothing to do with the ' Vieux Cordelier/ 
 for Desmoulins had been very angry with a journeyman 
 printer for letting him have a glimpse of a sheet before 
 publication. Groping at Robespierre's dark hints he essayed 
 other exculpations, when someone called out, * To the 
 guillotine with him.' This shocked the sensitive man of virtue 
 and his too precipitate supporter was expelled from the hall. 
 
 1 M. xix. 183. 
 
266 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 But men read guillotine in Robespierre's face none the less, 
 and one by one they shrank away from the doomed man with 
 marks of dissatisfaction at his speech. 
 
 On the loth Desmoulins was expelled from the Jacobins, 1 
 though reinstated at the same meeting. Robespierre spoke of 
 him with ostentatious contempt, which seems to have been the 
 genuine result of familiarity with his old schoolfellow, but again 
 delivered himself of dark allusions to other and more dangerous 
 conspirators. On the i3th what he meant was made clear by 
 Amar announcing to the Convention Fabre d'Eglantine's 
 arrest. 2 Dan ton proposed that he should be brought before 
 the bar of the Convention, for ' would you deprive the accused 
 of his right to be heard ? ' Once more he was listened to in 
 ominous silence, silence that was broken by ringing cheers for 
 Vadier, who cried, * No indulgence. Was Brissot heard ? ' 
 
 Danton made another attempt on behalf of his friend, 
 hoping to procure for him, if not a hearing in person at the 
 bar, at least a speedy report on his case, which could be 
 discussed in the Assembly. He demanded that the Committees 
 of Safety and General Security should inquire into and make 
 their report on the case without delay. But he took care to 
 add that he made no complaint against the Committee. ' To 
 hurry would be to strangle the plot,' retorted the boding voice 
 of Billaud-Varenne. ' Woe to him who has sat beside Fabre 
 d'Eglantine and is still his dupe ! ' Robespierre doomed 
 Fabre d'Eglantine at the Jacobins. Billaud sentenced Danton 
 at the Convention. 
 
 Danton, however, does not seem to have taken this screech- 
 owl warning to heart. Two days later we find him pouring a 
 douche of cold water on the perfervid sentiment of a future 
 member of the Committee of Safety, Laloi. Some youths 
 appeared at the Convention requesting the presence of some 
 Deputies at a civic fete, and one of them sang a song of his 
 own composition. Laloi asked for the insertion of the song in 
 
 1 M. xix. 198, 200. 2 M. xix. 207. 
 
1704 DANTON'S COMMON-SENSE 267 
 
 the Assembly's Bulletin. 'The Bulletin,' said Danton, ' is not 
 meant to contain the Republic's verses, but good laws drawn 
 up in good prose.' Laloi persisted, which drew from Danton 
 a characteristic rejoinder. 
 
 What is the use of appealing to principles which we all 
 recognise in order to deduce false conclusions? Of course 
 patriotic chants have their proper use in inflaming, in 
 electrifying, republican spirit. But which of you is competent 
 to criticise the hymn just sung ? Could you catch the sense 
 or the words ? Perhaps you will enlighten me about them, 
 for I own I am not competent. Why then resist the Conven- 
 tion's taking steps to acquire competence ? The proper course 
 is to refer the matter to the Committee of Education. No 
 one recognises more than I the necessity of encouraging the 
 arts and the abilities of the young. We have not founded a 
 republic of Visigoths. When its foundations are finally laid we 
 ought certainly to look to its embellishment, but in little 
 things, as great, the Convention should not act inconsiderately 
 or with precipitation. 
 
 A similar scene occurred the next month. A member of a 
 deputation began chanting some couplets of a patriotic song of 
 which he was the author. Danton interrupted him. 
 
 The hall and bar of the Convention are meant for the 
 serious and solemn utterance of citizens' opinions. No one 
 should let them be turned into a mountebank's stage. I have 
 in me, and always shall have, I hope, a fair allowance of French 
 gaiety. For instance, I would make our enemies dance. But 
 here it behoves us sedately, calmly, and with dignity to 
 concern ourselves about the important interests of the country, 
 to discuss them, to sound the war-cry against tyrants, to 
 denounce and strike traitors, and to beat the alarm-signal 
 against rogues. I appreciate the civic qualities of the deputa- 
 tion, but I move that in future we restrict to prose all that is 
 said at the Bar. 
 
 On both these occasions Danton's good sense carried the 
 day, but again we notice the absence of all applause. Before 
 long we shall find it is renewed, but now he was under a cloud. 
 In the hearing of the Billauds, Amars, and Robespierres a cheer 
 might condemn to the guillotine. 
 
268 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 On the 1 6th l he asserted at once his own consistency 
 and his indifference to Billaud by claiming for an opponent, in 
 opposition to his friend Bourdon, precisely what he had claimed 
 for Fabre d'Eglantine, viz. a report by the Committees on his 
 case. 
 
 On the 2ist, 2 on the question being raised whether 
 creditors of the King's brothers had any claim on the pro- 
 ceeds of their appanages, he remarked : ' As the proverb says, 
 " Perish beast, perish venom." It seems to me, since these 
 animals no longer exist, we need talk no more of appanages.' 
 
 On the 24th 3 he again opposed a friend. Camille 
 Desmoulins in a witty speech, which, however, elicited no 
 aughter, complained of a certain Section's foray at his father- 
 in-law's house. ' A clock taken, because it had a fleur-de-lys- 
 shaped hand. An old deed pounced on, the first word in 
 which was " Louis." " Ah, ah ! " said the fellow, " the Tyrant's 
 name. Off it goes." Another crime in the shape of an old 
 portfolio not touched for five years, so that they had to scratch 
 the dust off to examine it before they found the mark of the 
 beast,' and so on. Bourdon bluntly said that the outrage was 
 really meant for Camille Desmoulins, and moved that the 
 Committee of Security should inquire into the matter and 
 report. But Danton argued 
 
 that the Committee ought only to resort to such a measure in 
 public matters. If a report was to be made in one private 
 case it must be in others. The Committee was overloaded 
 with work already. A revolution could not be geometrically 
 perfect. Good citizens, if injured, should console themselves ; 
 it was in a good cause. These inquisitorial powers had been 
 placed in certain persons' hands when federalism was rampant, 
 and it was still dangerous to relax their powers. It was still 
 necessary to combine severity with justice. 
 
 After having in his usual fashion mollified his audience by 
 this concession he said what it was more important to enforce 
 on them, 
 
 1 M. xix. 233. 2 Ibid. 273. 3 Ibid. 295. 
 
1794 APPEAL FOR MODERATION 269 
 
 that in revolutions of necessity arose private enmities and 
 quarrels, and old and tried patriots were trampled on by new 
 comers. But better give them the rein than excite in the 
 enemy any hope of reaction. The nation was omnipotent. 
 It could crush aristocrats. It could quell excess. The Con- 
 vention was bound to do justice to all citizens, as soon as 
 it could do so without injury to the State. Desmoulins' 
 complaint was just in itself, but premature. If private 
 wrongs were to be righted, priority should be given not to 
 Deputies or their relatives, but to unhappier and needier 
 victims of arbitrary arrests, and he commended the question 
 to the two Committees as matter for solicitude and mature 
 deliberation. The success of the Convention was due to its 
 identification with the people. It would maintain it ; it would 
 always follow and abide by the people's will. 
 
 Anyone reading between the lines of this speech will see 
 the dexterity with which Danton inculcated a return to order 
 and moderation while seeming to condone a wrong. This 
 time it was he who was cheered and Desmoulins who was not. 
 But well Danton knew that he could do Desmoulins no better 
 service then than to place him in the light of a man who had 
 been used harshly, and that he could do the cause of the 
 ' Vieux Cordelier ' no better service than by thus cautiously 
 representing the poor and the friendless as its clients. There 
 was too, in his closing sentences, a subtle reminder that the 
 older champions of the Revolution might, if forced to do so, 
 appeal to the nation. 
 
 He adopted the same line of argument when Dalbarade, 
 Minister of Marine, was accused by Bourdon and another 
 member of defying the Convention. [ Bourdon urged that he 
 should be summoned to the bar of the House. But Danton 
 said 
 
 any such precipitate action was absurd. There was probably 
 some mistake. What was the Committee of Safety for if not to 
 see to such matters ? He noticed that members of the Con- 
 vention, both with regard to Ministers and private persons, 
 gave way to personal prejudices. Energy founded republics, 
 
 1 Bougeart by mistake says ' Bouchotte.' 
 
2/O LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 but it was prudence and conciliation that made them immortal. 
 What they did not want was factious partisanship ; what they 
 did was a party of reason. 1 
 
 Again, Raffron had moved that Chasles should be forced 
 to come before the Convention, if he had to be carried in a 
 litter. Dan ton protested against the Convention dealing with 
 such minutiae, which were the province of the two Committees. 
 Chasles no doubt seemed contumacious. But he might be ill 
 and unable to travel. Such a resolution as RarTron's would be 
 absurd. 2 
 
 These appearances of Danton prove that he persisted in 
 supporting the Committees ; that he never lost an opportunity 
 of appealing to common-sense and discouraging enrage 
 violence ; that he acted independently of any party ; that he 
 was not the * extinct volcano ' which some historians have 
 supposed him to be in 1794. Faction was too strong for him, 
 but personally he was what he always was, resolute, consistent, 
 self-reliant. It was his friends Bourdon, Desmoulins, 
 Legendre not he, who were mixed up in the * haines particu- 
 lieres ' which he deprecated in vain. Legendre's share in them 
 has not been yet mentioned. It is a ray of comedy amid the 
 squalid gloom of the squabbles at the Jacobins. He bitterly 
 resented the charge to which he might with a good conscience 
 plead ' Not guilty ' of being an aristocrat, and Hebert, still 
 smarting from Desmoulins' rapier-thrusts, came into collision 
 with his pole-axe. Their respective friends attempted to 
 assuage the combatants and suggested the exchange of a 
 fraternal kiss ; but, says the Moniteur's report, * Legendre se 
 refuse a cette proposition? 1 
 
 1 M. xix. 340. 2 Ibid. 350 
 
 Ibid. 339. 
 
1794 2/1 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 1794 February and March 
 
 PARIS PARTIES INFLUENCES ADVERSE TO DANTON HIS FRIENDS* 
 ENTREATIES HIS SPEECH FOR VINCENT AND RONSIN ; FOR ABOLI- 
 TION OF SLAVERY T ST. JUST'S RETURN TO PARIS OMINOUS SPEECH 
 
 DANTON'S RIDER TO IT ST. JUST AND HEBERT ARREST OF 
 
 HEBERT, OF HERAULT PANTON'S ATTITUDE HE DEFENDS THE 
 COMMUNE 
 
 SINCE the overthrow of the Girondins there had been four 
 powers in Paris the Mountain in the Convention, the Com- 
 mittees, the Commune, and the Club of the Jacobins. The 
 Mountain was gradually overshadowed by the Committees. 
 The Commune, on the other hand, habitually the Convention's 
 rival, long maintained its independence of the Committees. 
 It was represented in the Cordeliers Club by Hebert and his 
 gang. They again were represented in the army by Ronsin, 
 as the Mountain was by Westermann. In the triangular 
 combat which was in progress it is easy to see why Robes- 
 pierre wished to suppress Hebert and Chaumette. He repre- 
 sented the Committee of Safety, and he wished to master the 
 Commune. As High Priest at the Jacobins, too, he resisted 
 the upstart pretensions of the atheist Hebert. It is easy also 
 to see why men of the Mountain, like Danton and Desmoulins, 
 fell foul of Hebert, who travestied their revolutionary system 
 and undermined their influence. Again, it is easy to see why 
 Hebert and Robespierre hated Bourdon, Philippeaux, Fabre 
 d'Eglantine, &c. It was because they resisted the power of 
 the Commune on the one hand, and of the Committees on the 
 other. But it is not so easy to see why they hated Danton. 
 
2/2 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 He had no private feuds. 1 He had always been respectful to 
 the Commune. He strenuously supported the Committees. 
 But one reason in common they had for disliking him, viz. his 
 stronger personality, which dwarfed theirs and was apparent 
 every time he opened his mouth. Jealousy of his higher 
 revolutionary fame, and their conviction that while he lived 
 there would always be a formidable rallying-point for opposi- 
 tion, seem to have been the chief motives for his murder. As 
 to the means of attacking him, he was in two points especially 
 vulnerable. At a time when to be rich had become a crime, 
 gradations of wealth became gradations of wickedness. 
 Danton was comfortably off, sociable by nature, and equally 
 pleasant as host or guest. His occasional dinners at Meot's 
 cafe were exaggerated into the orgies of a Lucullus, and the 
 modest villa at Sevres belonging to his father-in-law, into vast 
 domains for which only Verrine extortions could have paid. 
 He was, too, mixed up in the diplomatic negotiations which 
 had been going on with foreign Courts. These, in themselves 
 objectionable to Robespierre, could be easily twisted into 
 charges of plots with the stranger. 
 
 Here then, at once were the same twofold means of accusa- 
 tion against him as against so many other victims of the 
 guillotine. For his private character there was the charge of 
 peculation ready ; for his political character, the charge of 
 treasonable plots. Not even in the days of Titus Gates was a 
 community more credulous as to plots. There was absolutely 
 no ill, great or small, threatening to destroy the country, from 
 the treason of Dumouriez to a dearth of soap, which was not 
 accounted for by a plot ; and it was almost invariably hatched 
 by one arch-plotter. Was bread dear in Paris ? Pitt had 
 bought up French corn. Were assignats depreciated? Pitt 
 had filled the country with forged notes. Was there a street- 
 
 1 ' Danton eut sauve tout le monde, meme Robespierre.' Garat. ' Ce 
 qui diminua sa force revolutionnaire, c'est qu'il ne put jamais croire que 
 ses adversaires fussent coupables.' Fabas. Quoted by Michelet, b. ix. 
 c. xi. 
 
1794 IMPUTATIONS ON DANTON 273 
 
 riot in Paris ? Pitt paid for it. To stir up the contra-revolu- 
 tionists Pitt was at the bottom of the * Vieux Cordelier.' To 
 bring the Revolution into contempt Pitt prompted ' Pere 
 Duchesne.' To describe Hubert as a Royalist was as ridicu- 
 lous as to call Legendre an aristocrat. 1 But, because ridiculous, 
 such charges were none the less dangerous, as Legendre knew 
 when he refused to give Hubert the kiss of peace. 
 
 Equally ridiculous, equally dangerous charges were being 
 whispered now, and had been whispered for months, against 
 Dan ton. A sentence from Elie Lacoste's report in June 1794 
 on the conspiracy of De Batz to rescue Louis, grotesque 
 though it is, is not more so than the legend that Danton 
 meant to set the Dauphin on the throne and act as prime 
 minister or regent. ' Antoinette, Chabot, Danton, Delacroix, 
 Ronsin, Hebert vivaient encore. Quelle ressource pour les 
 tyrans /' What, indeed ! This De Batz plot 2 is an excellent 
 illustration of the flimsy material out of which the gravest 
 charges were constructed, and it was of such material that the 
 nets now being woven round Danton were made. 
 
 Danton must have known something of what was going on. 
 He had erred grievously in refusing to sit again in the Com- 
 mittee of Safety. But Westermann was in Paris, eager to lead 
 once more the men he had led on August io. 3 Had Danton 
 concerted another insurrection with him now, as he had then, 
 had he sent emissaries to the Sections, had he rallied round 
 him his old friends of the Mountain by one of his old fearless 
 speeches in the Convention, he might have turned the tables 
 on He"bertists and Robespierrists alike, and, instead of dying 
 on the scaffold in April, have been Dictator of France in 
 March. But that was the one thing he would not do. In his 
 last recorded speech he said : * If ever private passions should 
 prevail over patriotism, if they should ever try to dig a fresh 
 pit for liberty, I would be the first to plunge into it myself.' 
 Invited to resist, he refused. To rise in arms against the 
 
 1 Michelet, b. xvii. c. i. 2 ' Plot of De Batz,' Appendix C. 
 
 3 NotwelU Biographic, 'Westermann.' Michelet, b. xvii. c. ii. : 
 
 T 
 
2/4 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 Committees seemed to him as if a father should draw his 
 sword against his own son. This, and not uxoriousness or the 
 desire to live at ease on ill-gotten wealth, is the real key to his 
 conduct during those last two months of his life which remain 
 to be noticed, February and March 1794. 
 
 On February 2 Voulland, speaking for the Committee of 
 General Security, proposed to release Vincent and Ronsin, as 
 no evidence had been brought against them. Bourdon of the 
 Oise flatly contradicted this. Voulland replied that Philip- 
 peaux's evidence had been given to the Committee of Safety, 
 not to his Committee. In opposition to his friends Bourdon 
 and Philippeaux, Danton spoke in behalf of his foes Ronsin and 
 Vincent. He said 
 
 that in a case of simple suspicion it was most dangerous and 
 impolitic to treat as suspect any man who had been of great 
 service to the Revolution. Philippeaux might be charged by 
 Ronsin as contra-revolutionary, just as Ronsin might be with 
 being incompetent by Philippeaux that is to say, only on 
 hearsay. There ought to be ample evidence, as he had before 
 urged unsuccessfully in case of Fabre d'Eglantine. He still 
 maintained in this case what he had in that ; for he would 
 defend his bitterest enemy if he had been of service to the 
 Republic. Philippeaux was, no doubt, convinced of the truth 
 of his charge, but under the circumstances he would surely feel 
 that these men should be at liberty. In the early days of the 
 Revolution he would have opposed all half-measures even with 
 patriots. Unflinching strictness was then necessary. But now 
 milder action might be taken. For himself, and he said so 
 solemnly, he would divest himself of all personal feeling when 
 called on to judge the opinions, writings, or actions of approved 
 revolutionists. The release of Vincent and Ronsin would be 
 a ray of hope for many men who had suffered in the common 
 cause, and the future of liberty would be as bright and pure as 
 it had already been victorious. 
 
 There could be no doubt of the meaning of this speech. 
 It was the * Vieux Cordelier ' in another shape. Vincent and 
 Ronsin were the text. But the sermon was in behalf of the 
 two hundred thousand suspects for whose release Desmoulins 
 
1794 ST. JUST'S REPORT 275 
 
 had pleaded, and, by anticipation, in behalf of Desmoulins and 
 himself. 
 
 The next day he spoke on the abolition of slavery in the 
 colonies. 
 
 Till to-day we have decreed liberty only selfishly and for 
 ourselves. Now before the whole world we proclaim universal 
 liberty, and all generations to come will glory in our decree. . . 
 Future generations will profit by our act. To abolish slavery 
 in the colonies is a deathblow to England. 
 
 On the 1 5th Robespierre fell ill, and remained so till the 
 middle of March. But his place was filled (was it designedly ?) 
 by his bolder and even acrider lieutenant, St. Just. He had 
 returned to Paris at the beginning of January, 1 and on 
 February 26 read the Committee of Safety's report on the 
 means of dealing with suspects in durance. It was a powerful, 
 sinister, document, containing ominous allusions to Desmoulins, 
 Danton, and Delacroix, and laden with Robespierrist syllogisms 
 of this sort : * Society must be purged if it is to subsist. Those 
 who resent its purgation wish to corrupt it. Those who wish to 
 corrupt it wish to destroy it.' He did not add what his hearers, 
 however, could not fail to supply, ' Those who wish to destroy 
 it must be guillotined.' But he left his meaning clear. 
 
 They had been too merciful (he said). In a year they had 
 only put 300 scoundrels to death. What English tribunal had 
 not slain more ? And their own monarchy had swum in blood 
 for thirty generations. Pity was treason. The first law of all 
 laws was to safeguard the Republic. There were facing-both- 
 ways politicians among them (Camille Dcsmoulins), sometimes 
 for Terror, sometimes for Clemency. What was necessary was 
 inflexibility. There were reprobates fattening on the spoils of 
 the people (Delacroix)* who desired to overthrow the guillotine 
 because they feared they would have to mount it. The rich were 
 numerous, and their enemies, the poor, must be helped at 
 their expense. Mendicity was a dishonour to a free State. It 
 must be abolished. The property of conspirators must be 
 given to the poor, &c. 
 
 ' NoztvcXc B:*Z"*pVe* 'St. JasL.' * M. xis. 567. 
 
 T 2 
 
2/6 LIFE OF DAN TON 1791 
 
 He ended by proposing that everyone in durance and claiming 
 to be set free should render an account of his conduct since 
 May i, 1789, and that the property of recognised enemies of 
 the Revolution should be sequestrated. The first of these 
 two proposals meant that the guillotine would be kept going 
 faster than ever. The second audaciously outbid the Hebert- 
 ists and was calculated to enlist the mass of the people on the 
 side of the Committee. 
 
 Danton saw the snare and proposed to minimise it by an 
 additional clause, 
 
 that every revolutionary committee should send to the Committee 
 of General Security a list of its members, with the revolutionary 
 record of each, for so the Committee of Security would be able 
 to purge these committees of false patriots masquerading in the 
 red cap, and patriots would be secure and free. 
 
 More he knew it impossible to suggest to the Assembly at 
 the moment, for it had adopted St. Just's report by acclamation ; 
 but by deference to the Committee of Security he succeeded in 
 passing this rider, which he hoped would at least check the 
 decentralisation of despotism and the otherwise infinite multi- 
 plication of petty and spiteful acts of tyranny by the enrages. 
 
 Fayau said that men in durance, conscious that they could 
 not give a satisfactory account of their conduct since 1789, 
 might seize the opportunity to divest themselves meanwhile of 
 their property, and therefore moved that all such transactions 
 should be pronounced null and void since the date of their 
 seizure. Danton replied that, as such transactions might have 
 gone on long before the decree, retrospective action would be 
 endless and impossible. Subsequently he recurred to the 
 socialistic half of St. Just's proposal. 
 
 No doubt (he said) the time was near when there would not 
 be one single destitute person in the Republic, but something 
 immediate might be done by way of instalment. Plots of land 
 stocked with cattle in the vicinity of Paris might be given to 
 mutilated soldiers, and so be a constant stimulus to the 
 patriotism of ethers, while filling the owners with gratitude to 
 the Republic. 
 
1791 ARREST OF HUBERT 277 
 
 This anticipation of three acres and a cow was in itself just 
 what would commend itself to Danton, but none the less it 
 was probably meant as a political countercheck to St. Just. 
 Nor could that sombre Committee-man's menaces rob him of 
 his gaiety. __ The Convention, which never was averse to details, 
 was discussing the advisability of establishing depots of male 
 animals to improve the breed of the most useful species, which 
 had deteriorated during the war. Classical parallels were 
 almost as frequent in the mouths of orators of the time as the 
 crimes of Pitt ; but Danton's parallel was original. 
 
 After a long and murderous war the legislators of Athens, 
 to repair the loss of so many fellow-citizens, ordained that the 
 survivors should have several wives apiece. 
 
 He advised the Assembly in small matters with all his old 
 shrewdness. 
 
 Landowners claiming compensation for their losses in La 
 Vendee should be indemnified in proportion to their services 
 to the State, and the poor on a higher scale than the rich. 
 
 A proposal to prevent petitioners denouncing members at 
 the bar of the Convention 
 
 might lead to consequences dangerous to free speech. It was 
 their own fault if they did not put a stop to nonsensical talk, 
 but, that being provided against, there should be absolute 
 freedom. 
 
 This speech was made on March 13. He spoke under 
 very different circumstances on the i yth. 
 
 Robespierre had recovered from his illness. On the night 
 of the 1 3th Hebert, Vincent, and Ronsin were arrested after a 
 terrible denunciation by St. Just during the morning in the 
 Convention. He did not mention Hubert by name, but every, 
 one knew whom he meant by 
 
 the scoundrel who has sold his conscience and his pen, and 
 changes his colours according to his hopes or fears, like a 
 chameleon in the sun ; 
 
 and when apostrophising him and his satellites he said 
 Rascals, go to the workshop, to the fleet ; go and plough 
 
2?8 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 the earth, infamous citizens, tools of the foreigner for the dis- 
 turbance of our peace and the corruption of all our hearts ; go 
 to the battle-field, vile concccters of calumny ; go and learn 
 honour among those in arms for the country. But no ; you 
 shall not go. The scaffold awaits you. 
 
 The arrest of Hebert meant the victory of the Committees 
 over the Commune, and the overthrow of the New by the Old 
 Cordeliers. l je suis vieux Cordelier,' said Legendre at the 
 Jacobins, when the Cordeliers sent a deputation asking him 
 and his friends to rejoin their society, and he ended by saying 
 they would never rejoin it till all the slaves in it had been swept 
 out. And the Jacobins refused to have any further communi- 
 cations with the rival club till it was * regenerated.' 
 
 So far Danton could not but approve. One of the charges 
 against Hebert seems to have been calumniation of him, * en 
 calomniant les patriots* les plus energiques oser meme les qualifier 
 cThommes uses] and apart from personal considerations Hebert's 
 threats of insurrection found no favour in his eyes. But on 
 March 17 St. Just announced to the Convention the arrest of 
 Herault de Sechelles, Danton's last ally on the Committee of 
 Safety, the blow being all the heavier because the grounds for 
 arrest were so frivolous. Why did not Danton resist ? Be- 
 cause he would not oppose the Committee ; because he did 
 not believe that Herault a member of the Committee could 
 be in real danger of his life, not one man of his rank in the 
 Revolution having as yet been arrested ; because he hoped to 
 help him by what may be called constitutional means. This is 
 what he meant when, on meeting the prisoners at the Luxem-* 
 bourg, of whom Herault was one, he said, ' Gentlemen, I hoped 
 to get you out of this.' This is why, when Bourdon attempted 
 to get Bouchotte arrested on the iQth, Danton would not sup- 
 port him. 
 
 The man who threatened liberty (he said) was overthrown. 
 The people and the Convention alike wished the guilty to be 
 executed. But the Convention should assume a dignified at- 
 titude, and beware of confounding, by spasmodic action, real 
 
1794 A WARNING SPEECH 279 
 
 patriots with sham ones. It was an affair for the Committees, 
 as was the conduct of all Ministers. Let the Convention use 
 vigilance and act in unison. Let those who first spoke the 
 word Republic, and confronted Lafayette, come there ready 
 with head and arm to defend their country. They were each 
 of them responsible to the people for the people's liberty. 
 As Frenchmen let them have no fear. Liberty must boil over 
 till all the scum was gone. The Committees were the advanced 
 guard of the body politic ; its forces must triumph when the 
 advanced guard was on the watch. Never was the Republic, 
 to his eyes, grander than now. A new landmark had just 
 been raised in this sublime Revolution. When it was necessary 
 to overthrow men who aped patriotism to slay liberty, they were 
 overthrown at once. The Committees should jointly examine 
 the conduct of all officials. As for themselves, each should 
 avow his faith. He had been the first man to demand revolu- 
 tionary government. At first his idea was rejected, then adop- 
 ted. It had saved the Republic. It was incarnate in those 
 he addressed. Let their watchwords be Union, Vigilance, De- 
 liberation. 
 
 In other words, he said to the Committees 
 
 We approve of what you have done so far. But the chief 
 thing to aim at now is to tranquillise the public mind. Let 
 bygones be bygones. Do not proscribe men for minor faults. 
 The people is sovereign over us all. You may provoke an ap- 
 peal to it. 
 
 For his long trust in the Committees was beginning to give 
 way. It was about this time he is supposed to have sai'd : ' If 
 the tyranny of the Committees be not restrained I despair of 
 saving the Republic.' 1 
 
 He spoke again the same day. The Commune, overawed 
 by the arrest of Hebert, sent Pache to protest its devotion to 
 the Assembly. Riihl, the President, gave Pache to understand 
 it was rather late in the day to come, but Danton declared that 
 he believed the majority of the Commune were loyal, and that 
 it would be a misfortune that its Deputies should go away with 
 a bitter feeling. Then, in the last words he ever spoke in the 
 
 1 ' Notes de Courtois,' Claretie's Desmoulins, p. 471. 
 
280 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 Convention, he reiterated that appeal for concord with which 
 he had so often thrilled its more generous spirits. 
 
 In the country's name let us leave no vantage-ground for 
 dissension. If ever when we are victorious and victory is 
 assured already if ever private passion should be able to pre- 
 vail over love of our country, if it should again attempt to dig 
 a fresh pitfall for liberty, I would gladly be the first to plunge 
 in it myself. But away with all rancour. The hour is come 
 when we shall be judged only by our actions. Masks are 
 falling ; there will be no more desire for masks. Men who 
 would butcher patriots will no more be confounded with the 
 magistrates of the people who are of the people themselves. 
 Were there among all our magistrates even only one man who 
 had done his duty, it were better to suffer anything than make 
 him drink the cup of humiliation. But here there can be no 
 doubt of the patriotism of the great majority of the Commune. 
 The President's reply has been strictly just, but it is liable to 
 misconstruction. Let us spare the Commune the mortification 
 of thinking it has been censured harshly. 
 
 Ru'hl one of the honestest men in the Assembly told 
 Danton to take the chair while he spoke in answer ; and Dan- 
 ton said 
 
 President, do not ask me to take the chair which you 
 occupy with such dignity. My intentions are honest. If I 
 have expressed them ill pardon the unintentional inconsistency. 
 I would forgive you for such an error. Consider me as a 
 brother who has spoken his mind frankly. 
 
 Riihl left the chair and threw himself into Danton's 
 arms. 
 
1794 28 1 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 1794, March 
 
 HURON'S ARREST INTERVIEW BETWEEN DANTON AND ROBESPIERRE 
 HAMEL'S DEFENCE OF ROBESPIERRE BILLAUD AND DANTON 
 ROBESPIERRE'S BASENESS DANTON'S ARREST ROBESPIERRE'S IN- 
 DICTMENT OF HIM SAYINGS OF DANTON 
 
 A FORTNIGHT later Danton was in prison. After St. Just's 
 ominous speeches no one could feel at ease. The more 
 violent of the Dantonists determined to strike at Robespierre. 
 They protested loudly that the prisons were full of true 
 patriots, that Bouchotte, the War Minister, ' vexed the people,' l 
 and that Heron, who had arrested Fabre d'Eglantine, and, 
 according to some historians, had secret communications with 
 Robespierre, was the chief instrument in inflicting these 
 persecutions. Bourdon, on March 20, demanded and obtained 
 a decree for his arrest. Robespierre and Couthon at once 
 came to the. rescue. Couthon inveighed against * moderates 
 who wish to assassinate the Government because it is virtuous, 
 and to arrest Heron because he does his duty,' adding that he 
 had never seen Heron. Another Deputy eulogised He>on 
 as having brought to the guillotine * merchants, bankers, and 
 other corrupt survivors of the old regime.' Robespierre spoke 
 next. ' I will say nothing about Heron personally,' he began. 
 Why should he have said this? It has been asserted that 
 Heron was his agent. 2 It has also been confidently denied/ 1 
 But clearly it was suspected at the time. He proceeded to 
 
 1 M. xx. 6. * By Michelet, b. xvii. c. ii. 
 
 8 By Hamel, b. xiii. sec. 32. 
 
282 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 say that the Committees had been informed by Fouquier- 
 Tinville that there was not a scrap of evidence against Heron. 
 Then, after declaring that no patriot's head should fall, he told 
 a strange story of someone having rushed into the Committee 
 of Safety's room the day before and, ' with fury impossible to 
 describe, demanded three heads.' Every man in the Assembly 
 must at once have asked himself, ' Who were the three ? ' and 
 the fingers of some members must have wandered uneasily 
 to their own necks. His vague conclusions were equally 
 alarming ; for he became fluent about virtue, about the people's 
 virtue and the Convention's virtue, and he never embarked on 
 that theme without meaning mischief. In his last sentence he 
 dealt his deadliest thrust. * If the Convention without prejudice 
 and without weakness will with a vigorous arm strike down one 
 faction, as it has annihilated the other, the country is saved.' 
 
 The result of his speech was that the arrest of Heron, 
 which had, he said, ' been illegally sprung upon the Conven- 
 tion,' was quashed. From that hour Robespierre's triumph 
 was secure and Danton was lost. 
 
 It was about this time that an attempt was made by 
 Vilain d'Aubigny to bring about a second reconciliation 
 between the two men. 1 They were invited to dinner either 
 in Paris or Charenton by a clerk in the Foreign Office. 
 Vilain d'Aubigny was present, and so were Panis, Robespierre's 
 friend, and the Dantonists Legendre and Ueforgues. There 
 are two accounts of this dinner, one by Vilain d'Aubigny, the 
 other by Prudhomme. Neither of the two can be deemed an 
 unimpeachable witness, but the meeting is admitted to be a 
 fact even by the advocates of Robespierre. According to 
 Vilain d'Aubigny, Danton declared that he never nursed any 
 hatred, that he could not understand why Robespierre had 
 been so curt to him for some time, that it must have been due 
 to the animosity of St. Just, whom he had reproached with 
 being so bloodthirsty while still so young, and of Billaud, 
 bitter at being under an obligation to him a couple of 
 1 Hamel, b. xiv. sec. 4. 
 

 1794 DANTON MEETS ROBESPIERRE 283 
 
 cowards the pair of them. Then he protested against the lies 
 told about his wealth, and complained that Robespierre let 
 himself be befooled by talk of plots, poison, and poniards, 
 and called on him to close ranks once more with honest 
 men. 
 
 This seems a very probable line for Danton to have taken. 
 He could not help looking down on Robespierre's tactics, 
 though he thought him useful to the Revolution. In allusion 
 to them he said 
 
 that a man always using the same materials in the end ruined 
 himself, and if he persisted in stirring up the mud rarely 
 escaped being sooner or later covered by it. 
 
 And again : 
 
 Robespierre's contempt for any great conception not his own 
 does not presage success for the future. He might conduct 
 the piece up to its fourth act, but would infallibly fail at the 
 climax of the fifth.' 
 
 Robespierre's reply also has verisimilitude. ' But,' said he, 
 ' with your morals and principles there would be no convicting 
 Anyone any more of guilt.' ' And that would not be to your 
 taste,' answered Danton quickly. But the reconciliation 
 seemed complete. They embraced and Danton showed 
 emotion. Everyone was moved except Robespierre, who re- 
 mained cold as marble. 
 
 According to Prudhomme, Danton said : ' We ought to 
 crush the Royalists, but not confound the innocent with the 
 guilty.' ' And who,' said Robespierre, frowning, ' told you a 
 single innocent man has lost his life ? ' ' What ! not one ! ' 
 said Danton ironically, turning to one of his friends. Robes- 
 pierre left the room first, and Danton then said : ' We must 
 bestir ourselves ; there is not a moment to lose.' 
 
 If Vilain d'Aubigny's account is a fable it shows his high 
 dramatic ability. The disavowal of hatred, the bluff rebuke 
 to St. Just, the jeer at Billaud, the recurrence to that sore 
 spot his supposed wealth, his final appeal to Robespierre, are 
 
284 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 all the things anyone who has read these pages will admit 
 Danton is likely to have said. And Robespierre's part in the 
 conversation is equally characteristic. Robespierre's most 
 thoroughgoing apologist considers both the accounts inven- 
 tions. 1 He would have us believe that till March Robespierre 
 bore Danton no ill-will, that his defence of him at the Jacobins 
 was sincere, that Billaud was really his murderer, that sorely 
 against his will, and by dint of story after story being now 
 dinned into his ears, he was induced by others to agree to his 
 death. The Belgian dinner-napkins. ' // le crut? The 
 * Vieux Cordelier' corrected by him for the press. '// le crut? 
 And now for the first time he understood the real meaning of 
 the Mirabeau liaison. ' II se rappela? And of the Orleans 
 liaison. * // se rappela." 1 And of the teas at Robert's house 
 with the Girondin general Wimpfen. l II se rappela' And of 
 May 31. i II se souvint] &c. All this flood of reminiscences 
 overpowered his affectionate nature and turned the friend into 
 a judge in a fortnight. And so with a painful effort ('//// 
 penible effort^} and very unfortunately, no doubt (' ce fut U7i 
 grand malheur, je rfhesite pas a le dire '), he ' consented ' unto 
 his death ('*'/ consentit a Fabandonner'}. 'The effort was 
 painful, but all the grander was the sacrifice.' 
 
 One thing there is in this affecting apology which is true. 
 Billaud was undoubtedly Danton's bitterest enemy. It was 
 he who, probably immediately after his speech on January 13, 
 first proposed to have Danton arrested. He boasted of it 
 afterwards and said that Robespierre jumped up like a madman 
 and cried that ' there was a desire to kill the best patriots." 
 But this same Billaud tells us something else, viz. that on the 
 very day before Danton's arrest Robespierre dined with him in 
 the country, and that they came back in the same carriage. - 
 To this Danton must have alluded when he said in prison that 
 never had Robespierre talked to Desmoulins in a friendlier 
 way than the evening before his arrest. If Robespierre could 
 
 1 Hamel, b. xiv. sec. 3. 
 
 2 Hamel, b. xiv. sec. 4. Michelet, b. xvii. c. v. 
 
1794 ROBESPIERRE'S TREASON 285 
 
 play the hypocrite so skilfully then why should he not have 
 done so three months before ? And what are we to think of 
 his notes on Fabre d'Eglantine's case, drawn up that very 
 January, in which he alluded to Danton as ' le patriote indolent 
 ct fier, amoureux a la fois du repos et de la celebrite, enchainc 
 dans une Idche inaction ou egare dans les dedales d'une politique 
 fuusse et pusillanime' 1 ? In the man of virtue's eyes this was 
 vice. And at this period of his life wherever Robespierre 
 .spied vice that is to say, opposition to himself he meant 
 murder. At what precise moment he pictured Danton in the 
 exact attitude of a man being guillotined it is, of course, 
 impossible to be certain. But that he had long hated him, 
 and for a considerable time had determined to get rid of hirn^ 
 there can be no reasonable doubt. His exclamation at Billaud's 
 proposal may have been wholly hypocritical, or partly the out- 
 break of a timid temperament always recoiling from sudden 
 action. It may even have been caused by momentary re- 
 morse ; for Robespierre's nature was not always bad or cruel. 
 It had slowly degenerated under the corrosive influence of 
 adulation, of familiarity with bloodshed, and of self-righteous 
 posturings. But as his notes on Fabre d'Eglantine's case 
 show what his feelings towards Danton were in January, so his 
 notes on Danton's case show how he had regarded him long 
 before. In Shakespeare's plays we are familiar with the 
 characters First Murderer, Second Murderer. Conceding 
 analogous priority to Billaud, we shall have done full justice to 
 Robespierre. 
 
 Danton's suspicions may have been lulled for the moment 
 by this interview, but it is more likely that he knew his danger 
 and was determined not to appeal to force to avert &{ The 
 famous words attributed to him expressed his resolution, 
 ' Better be guillotined than guillotine.v Westermann, Desmou- 
 lins, and Delacroix are said to have implored him to resort to 
 force or to fly. ' Where ? ' said he. * If I go shall I not be 
 thought guilty ? and if France, when she is at last free, casts 
 me from her bosom, what country will give me an asylum ? 
 
286 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 Does a man carry his country on the soles of his shoes ? ' l 
 And if he suspected Robespierre's sincerity he did not believe 
 in his courage. * If I fancied he even thought of it,' he is reported 
 to have said : ' I would crunch up the fellow's vitals.' And 
 again : * Robespierre ! I will take him with my thumb and 
 twirl him like a top.' But rumours of what was impending 
 made his friends less confident. Vilate, after a treacherously 
 friendly visit to Desmoulins, said : 'In a week we will have the 
 heads of the three, Danton, Camille, Philippeaux.' Vadier 
 a vulgarer Billaud boasted : ' We shall soon gut this fat 
 turbot.' 2 
 
 But Danton would not move. Perhaps at the very last he 
 may have been in two minds. Certainly he was greatly 
 perturbed. On the evening of the 3oth he stayed at home. 
 There he sat by the fireside in his study, crouching over the 
 grate and buried in thought. Every now and then he poked 
 the fire violently, heaving deep sighs and uttering broken 
 words, or would rise abruptly, and taking up his sister's son, 
 then nine years old, who afterwards related the night's events, 
 would kiss him passionately. 3 Late at night Panis, the Deputy, 
 ran in, told him the warrant for his arrest was out, and urged 
 him to fly. But he chid Panis for his weakness, and said : 
 '//j rioseront pas." 1 Another warning came from Robert 
 Lindet, with no more effect. The Committees had expected 
 resistance and sent an armed force in view of it. But in the 
 early morning of March 31 he was arrested, and, after some 
 delay in putting seals on his effects, was conveyed to the 
 Luxembourg. Desmoulins and Delacroix were brought there at 
 the same time. Danton saw Desmoulins sobbing, and ex- 
 claimed : ' Tears ! No, no ; if we must mount the scaffold, let 
 us do so merrily.' 4 
 
 The prisoners of the Luxembourg crowded round them 
 when they were brought in. Danton bowed to them and said : 
 * Gentlemen, I hoped soon to have got you all out of this, but 
 
 1 Lenox, p. 311. 2 L. Blanc, b. xi. c. x. 
 
 3 Proce", p. 125. 4 Lenox's Danton. pp. 317, 318. 
 
1794 ROBESPIERRE PROMPTS ST. JUST 287 
 
 here I am myself, and how it will end no one can foresee.' 
 To the Englishman, Paine, he said : * I should have liked to do 
 for my country what you have done for yours.' Some Royalists' 
 jeered at Delacroix, who made no answer. But Danton 
 laughed back and retorted : * A laugh is the proper answer to 
 people playing the fool. But if there is not a return to common- 
 sense soon I pity you. What you have suffered till now will 
 seem roses then.' ! 
 
 Meanwhile Lucile Desmoulins was urging his wife to go 
 with her to Robespierre and beg him to intervene. Madame 
 Danton refused, saying her husband would never forgive her 
 if she stooped to beg for his life. 2 And it would have been a 
 useless mission, as Lucile found afterwards when Robespierre 
 would not answer her piteous letters. She would have known it 
 then if she had known the events of the preceding evening. 
 An extraordinary meeting of the two Committees had been 
 convened to hear the report drawn up by St. Just from notes 
 furnished to him by Robespierre. Spitefuller notes or meaner 
 were never penned. 3 It is not so much the graver charges in 
 them which excite loathing, but the evidence they furnish of 
 long pent-up jealousy and hatred, and of a malignant disposi- 
 tion. They of course accuse Danton of intrigues with Mirabeau, 
 Lafayette, Barnave, and Lameth, and it seems the Incor- 
 ruptible had all along believed him to be bribed by Mirabeau. 
 They tell stories of his superior influence over Desmoulins, 
 clearly very irritating to the narrator ; of what Danton one 
 day said at dinner ; of his shedding tears merely out of jealousy 
 at Fabre d'Eglantirie's facility in doing so ; of his having told 
 dirty stories about Desmoulins ; of his bribing Fabre d'Eglan- 
 tine ; of his saving Duport ; of his saving the Prussian army 
 from destruction ; of his reviling public opinion and jesting at 
 virtue (in terms of which, at the time they were used, the man 
 of virtue had not apparently disapproved) ; of his having said 
 that the severe principles of their party frightened people ; of 
 his having been at tea with Robert, where Orleans mixed the 
 
 1 Lenox's Danton, pp. 317, 318. 2 Ibid. 3 Procts, p. 467. 
 
288 LIFE OF DANTOX 1794 
 
 punch and Wimpfen drank it ; of his having supported the 
 election of Orleans to the Convention ; of his cowardly flight 
 to Arcis in 1792, and of his cowardice always at any crisis ; of 
 his neutrality in the struggle with the Girondins ; of his having 
 wanted to spare the King's life ; of his having demanded 
 Hanriot's head and directly afterwards clinked glasses with 
 Hanriot and cheered him on ; of his having tried to over- 
 throw the Convention ; of his wanting to hand over French 
 colonies to America ; of his attempt to procure a general 
 amnesty ; of his having revised the ' Vieux Cordelier ' ; of his 
 having got pensions for the widows of enemies of the Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 Never was there a baser farrago of inventions, of lies that 
 were half the truth, of truths that were in the highest degree 
 creditable to Danton though damnatory in the eyes of his 
 accuser, and of stories which the sour narrator could not see really 
 told against himself. If it condemned Danton to a quick and 
 painless death it consigns the author to everlasting infamy. 
 Anyone reading it must say to himself over and. over again : 
 * If he knew all those things why did not the incorruptible man 
 of virtue speak at the time ? Why did he eulogise Danton at 
 the Jacobins if his eulogy was insincere ? Why did he not 
 denounce a man who was so dangerous a traitor long before ? 
 The blackest blot on Carriot's name is that he signed the warrant 
 based on such charges. And those historians, who make it a 
 reproach to Danton that some of those who vindicated his 
 reputation were themselves men of poor reputation, would do 
 well to remember that the two members of the Committees 
 who did not sign were those with the most irreproachable 
 record, Rtihl and Robert Lindet, the latter of whom, it is said, 
 refused with the indignant exclamation : ' I am here to provide 
 citizens with subsistence, not to kill patriots.' l 
 
 1 Proces, p. 123. 
 
1794 289 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 1794, April; The Trial 
 
 TRIAL PACKED JURY NO WITNESSES DANTON'S DEFENCE HERMAN'S 
 HYPOCRISY ROBESPIERRE'S SPEECH LEGENDRE'S DISCOMFITURE 
 ST. JUST'S CRIME LAST SAYINGS AND EXECUTION OF DANTON 
 
 THE formal interrogatory of the prisoners took place on April 
 i in the Luxembourg. One by one they were called into the 
 hall, where a judge of the Tribunal questioned them. The 
 question put to Danton was : ' Have you conspired against the 
 French people to establish the Monarchy and destroy the 
 national representation and Republican Government ? ' Answer : 
 * I was a republican even under the tyranny. I shall die 
 one.' 
 
 Question : ' Have you Counsel ? ' 
 
 Answer : ' I can conduct my own defence.' 
 
 When Danton returned from this ceremony he found 
 Desmoulins foaming with indignation. Trie made some joking 
 remarks to him, and returning to Delacroix asked him what he 
 thought of matters. Delacroix replied that he should go and 
 cut his hair, to prevent Sanson touching it. 'Yes,' said 
 Danton, ' it will be a different affair when Sanson breaks our 
 necks ! I think we ought to make no answer till we are 
 before the two Committees.' Delacroix replied that he agreed 
 with him, and they must try and touch the hearts of the 
 people. 
 
 From the Luxembourg they were conveyed to the 
 Conciergerie. There Danton was overheard recalling the time 
 when he established the Revolutionary Tribunal, and asking 
 
 u 
 
290 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 pardon for it from God and man. * I did not intend it to be 
 the scourge of humanity, but only to prevent the renewal of the 
 massacre of September.' 
 
 Other things that he said there have been preserved. 1 
 
 I leave everything in a frightful welter. Not one of them 
 has the smallest idea of governing. 
 
 Amid so many crimes I am glad to have signed some 
 decrees which will show I had no share in them. 
 
 They are own brothers to Cain. 
 
 Robespierre will follow me. I drag down Robespierre. 
 
 Robespierre is a second Nero. He never spoke to 
 Camille with more friendliness than on the eve of his arrest. 
 
 Better be a poor fisherman than govern men. 
 
 I have the consolation of knowing that the man who died 
 as chief of the faction of the Indulgents will find favour in the 
 eyes of posterity. 
 
 When people go to execution smiling it is time to break the 
 scythe of Death. 
 
 He talked, too, constantly, of trees and life in the country. 
 
 The trial before the Tribunal began on April 2. The jurors 
 were not chosen by lot, but by the Tribunal on the morning of 
 the trial. One of them was the base Vilate. One of them, 
 according to Michelet, was an idiot, one of them deaf, one of 
 them Renaudin notoriously a creature of Robespierre. 
 Seven others were said to be his men. 2 Louis Blanc is at pains 
 to prove that the deaf juror was only hard of hearing, that 
 Duplay, Robespierre's landlord, was as virtuous as his lodger, 
 and that two others were respectable an effort in special 
 pleading as unprosperous as his doubts about the jury having 
 been packed. Coffihhal, one of the most brutal characters of 
 the Revolution, furnished the minutes which Nicolas, another 
 creature of Robespierre, printed and passed on to the journals. 3 
 Herman was the presiding Judge, Fouquier-Tinville the Public 
 Prosecutor. 
 
 The prisoners were fourteen in number, including one 
 
 1 Riouffe's Narrative. Notes de Conrtois. 2 Prods, p. 595. 
 
 8 Nouvelle Biographic, 'Coffinhal.' Michelet, b. xvii. c. vi. - 
 
1794 PRELIMINARIES TO THE TRIAL 2QI 
 
 Spaniard, two Germans, and a Dane ; and one of the indigni- 
 ties to which Danton was exposed, and against which he 
 loudly protested, was being placed in the dock in company with 
 swindlers. 
 
 The Court opened at ten in the morning. Each of the 
 accused was asked his name and residence, and Danton made 
 his famous reply : ' My abode will soon be nothingness ; 1 as 
 for my name, you will find it in the Pantheon of History.' The 
 rest of the day was occupied in reading the act of indictment 
 against Fabre d'Eglantine &c. 
 
 On the second day the Court opened at nine o'clock. 
 Westermann was brought in as a fifteenth prisoner. No pre- 
 liminary interrogatory had been administered to him, and on 
 his protesting, and the judge replying that it was a useless 
 formality, Danton said that nevertheless they were for the 
 formality, and Westermann was taken out in order that he 
 might be interrogated in another room. It was now probably 
 that Danton said 
 
 If they will only allow us to speak, and speak at length, I 
 am certain of confounding my accusers ; and if the French 
 people is what it ought to be I shall have to beg from it their 
 pardon. 
 
 Desmoulins : Ah ! all we ask is to speak. 
 
 Danton : Barere is the patriot now, eh ? (To the jury] I am 
 the man who instituted this tribunal, so I ought to know some- 
 thing about it. (Pointing to Cambon, who was in the halt] 
 Do you think us conspirators ? See, he laughs. He does not 
 think so. Write down that he laughed. 
 
 On Westermann being brought back, the indictment 
 against the Dantonists was read, and the clerk proceeded to read 
 
 1 Does le ntant mean non-ttre or aneantissement de Fetre here ? 
 Danton used the words May 31, 1793 (M. xvi. 528), and during the trial 
 again ; and ' nothingness ' seems to translate them on each occasion. Cf. 
 Croker's ' Robespierre ' in Essays on Fr. Rev. : ' We must recollect that the 
 cemeteries bore the inscription prescribed bylaw: "Death is an eternal 
 sleep."' Danton's creed was agnosticism or vague theism. Cf v note in 
 . last chapter, 
 
 U 2 
 
LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 the law of January 23 against false witness. 1 The witnesses 
 for the prosecution then withdrew to the place assigned to 
 them, and the President told the accused to listen attentively 
 to the charges. The first witness and the only one ! called 
 was Cambon. His evidence was distinctly in Danton's 
 favour. He testified to the prisoner having denounced 
 Dumouriez as soon as he could have suspected his treason, 
 and having expressed full conviction of the ultimate triumph 
 of the Republic. According to the Bulletin of the Revolutio- 
 nary Tribunal, he then said that Lebrun had given Danton and 
 Delacroix 100,000 livres secret-service money when they went 
 to Belgium. But the Bulletin was deliberately falsified. 
 Cambon could not have given such evidence, as Delacroix on 
 February 13 had in the Convention produced Lebrun's 
 written affirmation that he had given him no such sum, and 
 that he had never been asked for such a sum. 2 The rest of 
 Cambon's evidence referred to Fabre d'Eglantine, Chabot, &c. 
 But when Fouquier-Tinville was afterwards on his trial 
 D'Aubigny deposed that Fouquier told him that Danton and 
 Desmoulins appealed to Cambon to say if they were conspira- 
 tors, whereupon Cambon replied : ' So far from saying so, I 
 look on them as excellent patriots who have been of the 
 greatest service to the Republic.' 4 Robespierrist writers 
 attempt to invalidate this by asserting that on October 3, 1794, 
 Cambon charged Danton with being a 'conspirator.' Now 
 what Cambon said of Danton then he said of Robespierre too, 
 and to say he charged either of them with being a ' conspirator ' 
 is not true. He used no such words, and what he did say was 
 much too vague to constitute any valid charge. On the other 
 hand Danton's remark, ' Write down that he laughed,' supports 
 the probability of D'Aubigny's allegation. And who recorded 
 this remark ? One of the jury, Topino-Lebrun, whose notes 
 prove the dishonesty of the official report. We may conclude, 
 therefore, that the one witness called on the second day, so far 
 
 1 M. xix. 291. 2 Ibid. 551. 3 Hamel, xiv. sec. 7. 
 
1794 DANTON'S DEFENCE 293 
 
 from incriminating, acquitted Danton, and the prosecution did 
 not dare call another. 
 
 The special charges against Fabre d'Eglantine were now 
 adjourned, and the real trial of the Dantonists began. Danton 
 spoke nearly all the rest of the day. The Revolutionary 
 Bulletin makes what was in fact an extraordinary combination of 
 reason and eloquence seem a disjointed series of incoherent 
 and violent exclamations ; and, as the notes of Topino-Lebrun 
 are only fragments, we have lost for ever what was his oratorical 
 masterpiece and the grandest defence ever made by a political 
 prisoner tried for his life. 1 He was being tried for wishing to 
 establish monarchy and destroy the national representation 
 and republican government. He replied by pointing to his re- 
 sistance to Lafayette, Bailly, Mirabeau ; to his hindering the 
 flight of the King to St. Cloud. As to his having * emigrated ' 
 to England, he said he went with his brother-in-law, who ha.d 
 business, and when Herman maladroitly invoked Marat's name 
 he reminded him that Marat had gone to England twice. As to 
 his having intrigued with the Girondins, the animosity of Gua- 
 det, Brissot, and Barbaroux, he said, was his best answer. He 
 rebutted the accusations of Orleanism and of complicity with 
 the Court in the Champ de Mars. He admitted having gone 
 to Arcis before August i o, and said why he went, and for how 
 long. He went into detail as to the public money he had re- 
 ceived and disbursed. He explained his connection with Noel 
 and his conduct to Dumouriez. In short, he summed up the 
 whole of his political life, answering each charge at once with 
 overwhelming cogency and vigour of phrase. Many of his ex 
 pressions are known to every reader of history. 
 
 Let the cowards who calumniate me confront me. Only 
 let them show themselves and I will cover them with 
 ignominy. 
 
 My life ! I am weary of it. I long to be quit of it. 
 
 Men of my stamp have no price. On their foreheads are 
 
 1 So we may conclude from the effect produced by it on the audience 
 and the judges, and from tradition. 
 
294 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 stamped in ineffaceable characters the seal of liberty, the genius 
 of republicanism. 
 
 Ah ! St. Just, thou shall answer to posterity for thy defa- 
 mation of the people's best friend and boldest champion. 
 
 As I read through this list of horrors I shudder all over with 
 indignation. 
 
 Let my accusers come forward, and I will plunge them into 
 the nothingness out of which they ought never to have emerged. 
 Appear, you impostors, and I will tear off the mask which con- 
 ceals you from the people's vengeance. 
 
 Never was I influenced by cupidity or ambition. Never have 
 my private feelings compromised the public welfare. Always 
 for my country, body and soul, I have sacrificed without stint 
 for it the whole of my being. 
 
 I must speak of the three shallow scoundrels who have been 
 the bane of Robespierre. 
 
 Where are the men who were forced to urge Danton to show 
 himself on the loth of August? Where are those heroic beings 
 from whom he borrowed energy ? 
 
 Two days this tribunal has known Danton. To-morrow he 
 hopes to sleep on the bosom of glory. Never has he prayed 
 for indulgence, and he will be seen hasting to the scaffold with 
 the serenity of an innocent conscience. 
 
 I had prepared the loth of August, and I was at Arcis for 
 Danton is a good son to spend three days in bidding good-bye 
 to my mother and in settling my affairs. 
 
 The voice of a man speaking for his honour and his life 
 may well drown thy bell. 
 
 Danton's voice might drown the President's bell, and did 
 in fact swell to such volume that it was heard on the other side 
 of the Seine. A dense crowd filled the Place Dauphine, and 
 scarcely had he spoken in Court when his words were passed 
 from mouth to mouth till they reached men far off at the Mint. 1 
 Herman grew uneasy. Some of the Committee of Security who 
 had been looking in at one of the windows of the Court slunk 
 one by one away. For many of Danton's appeals were ad- 
 dressed, as had been prearranged with Delacroix, straight to 
 the people. What if they should rescue and revenge him? 
 A note was passed by Herman to Fouquier-Tinville. In it 
 
 1 Claretie's Desmoulins^ p. 334. 
 
1794 HERMAN'S IIVPROCRISY 295 
 
 was written : ' In half an hour I shall suspend Danton's de- 
 fence ; we must enter into greater detail.' 
 
 Accordingly, when the time was come he hypocritically in- 
 vited Danton to rest awhile, as he seemed tired, and the other 
 prisoners must be heard. He is also said to have promised that 
 he should be allowed to continue his speech next day. That* 
 promise was not kept, nor in any case. would it have been of 
 any avail. Danton had ended by insisting on being allowed to 
 call witnesses, and on being refused cried : ' Then I say no more 
 in my defence.' Not a single document had been produced in 
 evidence against him, not a single witness for the prosecution 
 except Cambon, not a single witness for the defence, though in 
 several points such evidence would have been all-important to 
 the accused. So ended the Third of April and the second day 
 of the trial. 
 
 On Friday, the 4th, a new prisoner was introduced in the 
 person of Lullier. After questioning him the President pro* 
 ceeded to deal with Herault de Sechelles and Delacroix. Danton 
 interrupted once, when Delacroix was being charged with 
 having stolen linen in Belgium, to say that, so far as he was 
 concerned, the only property he had in the waggon containing 
 the linen was his own wearing-apparel, and that the official report 
 proved this. The President and Prosecutor subsequently 
 charged him with equivocal conduct to Hanriot, a charge which 
 he denied point-blank. The rest of the day was taken up by 
 an intermittent examination of Philippeaux and Westermann, 
 the accused repeatedly insisting on their right to call witnesses. 
 The last person to be examined was Diederichsen, the Dane, 
 
 Before relating the events of April 5 we must see what had 
 been meanwhile going on outside the Palais de Justice. On 
 the morning of March 31 Legendre addressed the Convention 
 about the news which had just electrified Paris. 1 He asked 
 why Danton Danton, the saviour of the country, a man as 
 loyal as he was himself had been arrested, and moved 
 
 1 M. xx. 94. 
 
296 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 that he should be heard at the bar. He was opposed by 
 Fayau, whose animosity against Danton has been previously 
 noticed. Then Robespierre rose and delivered a speech, some 
 of which was really eloquent ; for when his cold blood was 
 fired by hate he could, as had happened in the case of Fabre 
 d'Eglantine, become genuinely impassioned. It so terrified 
 Legendre that that evening at the Jacobins 'he rolled in the 
 mud,' J declaring that he would denounce anyone who 
 thwarted the morning decree of the Convention. Robespierre 
 demanded why more indulgence should be shown to Danton 
 than to Fabre d'Eglantine ; poured scorn on boastful oratory ; 
 charged Legendre with pretending not to know that Delacroix 
 was arrested because he was ashamed to defend him and 
 thought he might be screened by the privileged name of 
 Danton. * No,' he cried, * we will have no more privilege. 
 No, we will have no more idols.' Then he warned Legendre 
 and, we may be sure, many others in the Assembly sharing 
 Legendre's feelings that anyone who was afraid was ipso facto 
 a criminal, for no one innocent dreaded State surveillance. 
 Later on he appealed with diabolical ingenuity to their selfish- 
 ness, pointing out that the conspirators were only few in 
 number, meaning, of course, that they were not to be feared, 
 and therefore might be safely sacrificed. While thus working 
 on the baser instincts of his audience he made their cup of 
 shame palatable by exalting the heroism necessary to descend 
 so low. 
 
 No doubt courage, grandeur of soul were necessary, for 
 vulgar or criminal men always disliked seeing their congeners 
 fall, because their own turn might come next, but there were 
 heroic spirits in this Assembly 
 
 such, to wit, as Robespierre, for most of the remainder of his 
 speech was on that old nauseous theme. Probably no other 
 orator since the world began would out of the murderous 
 
 1 Michelet, b. xvii. c. v. : ' Le soir Legendre anx Jacobim roula dans la 
 bone. ' 
 
1794 ST. JUST'S SPEECH 2Q7 
 
 overthrow of a rival have evolved the following line of argu- 
 ment : 
 
 I have been told that Danton in time of need might be 
 my shield. What care I for any danger ? My life is my 
 country's. My heart is exempt from fear, &c. 
 
 But Robespierre knew his audience. Though some of them, 
 Legendre among the number, would have dearly liked to 
 respond to this martyr for murder's sake in another fashion, 
 they were panic-stricken and accorded him round after round 
 of applause. (' On applaudit a plusieurs reprises?} 
 
 St. Just's report completed their prostration. As he stood 
 before them, statuesque of face, hardly more than a boy in 
 years, too much a zealot apparently to be actuated by personal 
 malignity, his monotonous indictment seemed like ' a message 
 of doom falling from the lips of the Angel of Death.' Yet, if 
 its general purport had not been so sinister, the absurdity of 
 some of its items might have provoked mirth. To charge 
 Danton with giving dinners at 100 crowns a head must to a 
 nimble-witted Parisian have seemed inartistic. 1 - And many 
 would have thought that a taste for dining with Englishmen, 
 though strange and reprehensible, could hardly be considered a 
 mortal crime. Many also acquainted with the St. Amaranthe 
 family must have known that they were no friends of Danton. 
 The myth of his dissolute orgies seems to have had for a basis 
 the fact that once when they and their friends were dining at a 
 certain restaurant he and his friends were dining in the next 
 room, and the character of his party may be conjectured from 
 the remark of Madame St. Amaranthe's host: 'They are 
 graver in there than we are.' 2 But though the absurdity of 
 such parts of St. Just's report was self-evident no one in the 
 Convention dared criticise or oppose it, and with all its follies 
 and infamies it was adopted amid enthusiastic cheering, the 
 members then settling down to more commonplace topics, such 
 
 1 Procts, p. 327. 2 Claretie's Desmoulins, p. 437-8. 
 
298 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 as the capture of an English ' brick ' laden with oil, and the 
 inexhaustible villainy of Pitt. 
 
 Nor on the ist was anything said about the trial. On the 
 2nd Couthon announced Westermann's arrest. On the 3rd 
 the President, Tallien, informed the Assembly that the seasons, 
 the elements, the sun, and nature, seconded the generous 
 efforts of a great nation, and that the ground was already firm 
 enough to carry their armies on their way to plunge poniards 
 into the breasts of tyrants. But he said not a word about 
 Danton, whom a few days before he had implored to resort to 
 force. 1 On the 4th, however, the general feeling of terror 
 which underlay this silence was evinced quaintly by Legendre. 
 He told the Convention how he had been warned not to sleep 
 at home that night, as he was going to be arrested, and how 
 out of consideration for the timidity of his wife he had 
 promised (' Mon epouse^ qui partage la fail) less e naturelle a son 
 sexe, me pressa dialler coucher chez un ami. Pour la tranquil- 
 liser je le lui promts '), but that in reality he had sought the 
 protection of the Committee of Security, as he now did that of 
 the Convention. Even at such a time the Convention must 
 have smiled at Legendre's confidences and his sublime com- 
 passion for the apprehensions of his wife, but it was soon 
 solemnised by the apparition of St. Just. In the name of 
 the Convention he announced a letter from Fouquier-Tinville, 
 saying 'that the rebellion of the criminals had suspended 
 proceedings in Court till the Convention had taken measures.' 
 Then St. Just went on 
 
 You have escaped the greatest danger which has ever 
 menaced liberty. All the accomplices are now discovered, and 
 the rebellion of the criminals in the very presence of justice 
 unfolds the secrets of their hearts. Their despair, their fury, 
 everything, tells that the bonhomie which they assumed was the 
 most hypocritical snare ever laid for the Revolution. 
 
 He went on to say that Dillon, who was in prison at the 
 Luxembourg, had declared that Lucile Desmoulins was in 
 1 Lenox, p. 310. 
 
1794 ST. JUST'S PERFIDY 299 
 
 receipt of money to bribe men to assassinate ' the patriots 
 and the Revolutionary Tribunal. Evidently by design he so 
 mixed up his charges against the prisoners before the Tribunal 
 and the prisoners in the Luxembourg as to create the belief 
 that the former were concerned in the plot of the latter. He 
 finally demanded, on the strength of what we shall see was an 
 abominably perfidious perversion of the truth, that the Conven- 
 tion should order the trial to proceed and should decree that 
 every prisoner resisting or insulting the judicial authorities 
 should be deprived of his normal rights as an accused man. 
 
 Immediately St. Just had finished, Billaud, before a vote on 
 the decree could be taken, gave his account of the alleged 
 conspiracy in the Luxembourg, about which it is unnecessary 
 here to say more than that the chief evidence for it was that 
 furnished by a couple of l moutonsj Laflotte and Amans, 1 the 
 latter said to be an instrument of Robespierre and both of 
 them spies on the prisoners, and in the pay of the Committees. 
 Then the Convention unanimously passed St. Just's decree. 
 
 Now the truth is (i) that there had been no rebellion of 
 the prisoners before the Tribunal, and that in Fouquier- 
 Tinville's letter there was no mention of any such rebellion ; 
 (2) that they could not possibly have had any communication 
 with the prisoners in the Luxembourg. What happened 
 was this : Fouquier-Tinville, embarrassed by the persistent 
 demands of the prisoners for the production of witnesses, said 
 to Delacroix on the 4th that he would write to the Convention 
 and ascertain its wishes, which he would strictly obey. He 
 never wrote to the Convention. He did write to the Com- 
 mittee of Safety, but St. Just did not read his letter to the 
 Convention. All that Fouquier-Tinville said in it was that a 
 storm had arisen during the trial and that the accused furiously 
 demanded to be allowed to call witnesses for the defence, and 
 kept appealing to the people to note how this right was, as 
 they pretended, refused them; that these persistent demands 
 disturbed the proceedings (' troublent la seance') \ that the 
 1 Prods, pp. 423, 574, 
 
30O LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 accused openly declared they would not desist from their 
 demands till the witnesses were called, and, he concluded : 
 ' We beg you to define precisely how we are to treat this 
 demand, our judicial regulations supplying no means of justify- 
 ing refusal except a decree.' The demand of the prisoners, 
 therefore, was so just that even Fouquier-Tinville dared not 
 refuse it on his own responsibility. Neither dared St. Just let 
 the Convention know what they demanded. So he interwove 
 a mutiny (' revolte ') of which Fouquier-Tinville had said nothing 
 with the mutiny in the Luxembourg reported by Laflotte, and 
 by this devilish trick procured from the Convention what was 
 sentence of death for Danton. 
 
 Danton had offered no insult to the judges. 1 He had been 
 promised another hearing. He had refused to speak unless he 
 could call witnesses, as was his right. And when he was again 
 brought into Court at half-past eight A.M. before the usual 
 time he came confident, no doubt, that he would obtain his 
 demand. His dismay and indignation may be imagined when 
 the first thing Fouquier-Tinville did was to order, the clerk to 
 read the Convention's decree of the 4th, and the next to declare 
 that he had a number of witnesses for the prosecution, but that| 
 in compliance with the orders of the Assembly (which had given 
 no such orders}, he would abstain from calling all of them (he 
 did not call one) ; that the accused, therefore, must not expect 
 to call theirs ; that they would be judged solely on written 
 evidence, which was all they were called on to rebut. Then 
 Fouquier read out an account of the plot in the Luxembourg, 
 which drew from the unhappy Desmoulins a heart-rending 
 cry : ' Villains ! not content with assassinating me, they will 
 assassinate my wife too ! ' 
 
 Danton and Delacroix now claimed the right to continue 
 their defence, but the President put it to the jury whether they 
 had not heard enough. The jury replied in the affirmative, 
 and the President declared the pleadings ended. * Ended ! ' 
 cried Danton ; * they are not yet begun. You have not read 
 1 Procts, p. 597-8. 
 
1794 THE JURY TAMPERED WITH 301 
 
 the evidence, nor heard the witnesses ; ' and he and Delacroix 
 loudly inveighed against such tyranny. ' We are going to be 
 sentenced unheard.' 'Quick with your verdict. We have 
 lived long enough. Take us to the scaffold.' Danton saw 
 Amar, Voulland, Vadier, and David gloating as they gazed, 
 and said to his friends : ' Look at those base assassins ; they 
 will hunt us to death.' Amar and Voulland are said to have 
 brought the Convention's decree. Voulland sent for Fouquier, 
 and meanwhile said to a bystander triumphantly : ' We have 
 them, the scoundrels ; they have been conspiring at the 
 Luxembourg.' When Fouquier came out Amar said : ' Here is 
 what you want.' * Something to put you at your ease,' added 
 Voulland. * We wanted it badly enough,' replied Fouquier, 
 and went back into Court with a smile of satisfaction on his 
 face. 
 
 The jurors also, it is alleged, were tampered with. Despite 
 their composition they wavered, either overawed by the mur- 
 murs of the people or influenced by the defendants' speeches. 
 But Herman and Fouquier showed them a letter from abroad 
 addressed to Danton, and painted him and his friends in the 
 vilest colours as conspirators. Souberbielle the doctor, one of 
 the jury, has related that Topino-Lebrun said to him : ' This is 
 not a question of law but of high policy. We are not in the 
 position of jurors, but statesmen. Both of the two men are 
 impossible. Is it Robespierre you would rather kill ? ' ' No.' 
 ' Well that means rinding Danton " guilty." ' This conversation 
 is said to have taken place on the evening of the 4th. 1 It is 
 impossible to be sure of the truth of many of such stories, but 
 this is related by one of the men on whose respectability the 
 Robespierrist historian, Louis Blanc, especially insists. 
 
 Camille Desmoulins, probably when he heard his wife's 
 
 arrest mentioned, is said to have flung the notes he had in his 
 
 hands in the faces of his judges. And here it may be observed 
 
 that whatever else may be said of Desmoulins he was no 
 
 l coward. He has been charged with cowardice because he had 
 
 1 Michelet, b. xvii. c. vii. 
 
3O2 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 no dignity. Rage he exhibited, now, at his arrest, and at his 
 execution, rage and most piteous grief for his wife and 
 Danton by turns rebuked and consoled him but no cowardice. 
 Thus much is the due of a man to whom in many respects more 
 than justice has been done by many writers, in this respect less. 
 But it was his childish impulse more perhaps than the manlier 
 remonstrances of Danton and Delacroix which gave Herman 
 an excuse for putting the Convention's decree in force and 
 summarily ordering the prisoners to be removed. Desmoulins 
 clung to the bench on which he sat and uttered maledictions 
 on his judges as he was torn away by force. He and the others 
 were removed to the Conciergerie. Ducray, the clerk, soon 
 came to announce to them their sentence. None of them 
 would listen. ' Take us to the guillotine,' they said ; ' we are 
 assassinated.' While they waited there and before the jury had 
 brought in their verdict the printers ' were setting up the types 
 for the text of the death-sentence, so that the public criers 
 might at once announce it to the crowd.' 
 
 From the Conciergerie they were taken to the Place de la 
 Revolution, an armed force which had been for some time 
 waiting at the prison escorting the tumbrels. Some of Danton's 
 sayings previously quoted are reported to have been uttered 
 now. Others more certainly belong to these last moments. 
 Fabre d'Eglantine expressed regret at having left his comedy 
 1 L Orange de Malte ' unfinished. ' Vos vers I ' said Danton with 
 a grim jest which English cannot reproduce, ' bah ! dans une 
 semaine vousferez assez de vers.' Then he said something nobler : 
 ' Our work is done ; let us take our rest.' He smiled con- 
 ^emptuously as the executioner clipped his hair and bound him. 
 ' In the tumbrel he stood between Camille Desmoulins and 
 Fabre d'Eglantine, and Desmoulins leaned on him. Some of 
 the enormous crowd chanted the ' Marseillaise.' Some were 
 Royalists come to see the Procureur de la Lanterne die. Others 
 were the brutal spectators who always throng to an execution. 
 As their yells and laughter met the ears of the condemned, 
 Danton said : ' Fools ! they are waiting to cry " Vive la Repub- 
 
1794 SCENE AT EXECUTION 303 
 
 lique ! " In an hour the Republic will be without a head.' 
 Desmoulins started up and struggled so violently as to tear his 
 shirt from his shoulders, crying all the while to the people to 
 come to the rescue. * It was I who in '89 called you to arms. 
 My only crime has been pity.' He was answered by jeers. 
 1 Hush ! ' at last said Danton, who had been listening to him as 
 he had often listened by their fireside, * heed not that base 
 rabble.' As they passed the Cafe de la Re'gence they saw 
 David sketching them. ( You lackey ! ' Danton called out. 
 The windows of Robespierre's house were closed, and 
 Desmoulins as they passed cried : ' My assassins will not long 
 survive me.' 
 
 The sun was declining as they reached the Place de la Revo- 
 lution, where the Revolution's ' First Apostle ' and its real hero 
 were to die. It was a lovely evening of a lovely spring, such 
 a spring as old men said they had never before known. The 
 lilacs on the terraces of the Tuileries were in full blossom ; the 
 air had the warmth of midsummer rather than April. The un- 
 happy men themselves, all of them in their prime, must have 
 felt with an additional pang that in the midst of life they were 
 in death. Herault de Sechelles was the first beheaded. He 
 tried, as he passed, to kiss Danton, but the executioner's men 
 would not let him. Danton said to them : * Fools, you cannot 
 hinder our heads meeting in the basket presently.' As one by 
 one his friends were summoned he said to each some word of 
 consolation. He himself was the last to die. Who does not 
 know his last words ? Thinking of his wife he said : ' My 
 beloved, shall I no more behold thee ? ' then, ' Come, Danton, 
 no weakness.' And then to Sanson, the executioner : ' Show 
 my head to the people ; it is worth while ; they do not see the 
 like every day.' 
 
 This Danton (said an eye-witness) plays his part very 
 well . . . - 1 At the foot of the horrible statue silhouetted in 
 colossal outline against the sky I saw the Tribune standing 
 
 1 Souvenirs (Tun Sexagtnaire, par A. V. Arnault, quoted by Claretie 
 in his DesmottlinS) pp. 45 2 -4 
 
304 LIFE OF DANTON 1794 
 
 upright, like one of Dante's shadows, half illumined by the 
 dying sun, and like one rising from the tomb rather than about 
 to enter it. Nothing bolder than the countenance of this 
 athlete of the Revolution could be imagined, nothing more 
 formidable than the pose of the profile defying the axe, than 
 the poise of the head, still, while on the point of falling, seem- 
 ing to dictate laws. Appalling spectacle ! Time can never 
 efface it from my memory. I saw there incarnate the feeling 
 which inspired Dan ton's last words terrible words which I 
 could not hear, but which were reported to me with a shudder 
 of horror and admiration. 
 
305 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 DANTON NOT VAIN OR CYNICAL HIS ORATORY, TOLERANCE, COMMON- 
 SENSEVIEWS ON EDUCATION, RELIGION HIS GREAT MISTAKE 
 HIS AIMS AND SHORTCOMINGS STATUE AT ARCIS 
 
 To men of our day and of temperament less emotional than 
 that of Frenchmen Danton's last words may seem revoltingly 
 self-conscious. So may Mirabeau's ' Support that head ; 
 would I could bequeath it thee.' But to be judged fairly both 
 men should be judged relatively to their race and time. There 
 was plenty of theatrical eloquence then and much attitudinising 
 in our own House of Commons, which had its dagger-scene 
 to match Marat's pistol, and in the House of Lords, which so 
 recently had acknowledged Chatham as its protagonist. 
 Danton was a born orator, and perhaps there has never been 
 a great orator who has not had in him something of the actor. 
 But he was fundamentally neither an egotist, nor artificial, nor 
 a cynic. What more naturally pathetic could there be than 
 his reference to his wife ? what less cynical, less self-absorbed 
 than his demeanour to his comrades ? 
 
 The egotism in his speeches, though sometimes amusing, 
 is mostly too frank to be offensive. As in private life he was 
 content to listen while Desmoulins talked, so in the Assembly 
 he spoke only when he had something practical to say, not 
 for self-glorification. Common-sense, and shrewd readiness, 
 expressed in language of volcanic strength, are the charac- 
 teristics of his oratory. So many specimens of it have been 
 given that it is unnecessary to do more than quote Mr. Morse 
 Stephens' appreciation. 
 
 x 
 
306 LIFE OF DAN TON 
 
 He was the only statesman who always improvised and 
 spoke extempore. . . . For this reason his speeches stand out 
 as distinct from those of Mirabeau an d Robespierre, Vergniaud 
 and Barere. They are not models of style ; they are not com- 
 posed with rhetorical accuracy ; th ey contain no balanced 
 periods, no carefully selected words and passages. They 
 possess all the faults and merits of ext empore speeches. They 
 are diffuse and badly arranged ; the o rator jumps from subject 
 to subject in a bewildering fashion ; he repeats his arguments 
 and words ; and his style is brusque and rough rather than 
 polished. But yet they have extraordinary merits. They 
 seem to come red-hot from his thoughts ; and though they lack 
 the care of the practised rhetorician they abound in the straight- 
 forward eloquence of the heart. 
 
 An orator of this type could hardly be essentially a vain or 
 cynical man. Vanity is less careless. Its speeches smell 
 more of the lamp. It consists rather in a man's excessive 
 estimate of his own virtues and attributes than in blunt 
 reference to such as are accorded to him by common consent 
 of other people. And for Danton's most tumid phrases there 
 was special excuse. * Nature has endowed me with the rough 
 lineaments of liberty ' may seem mere rodomontade, but when 
 the Roland coterie spoke of his scarred visage as stamping him 
 a villain it became an excusable retort. As to his cynicism, 
 the notion of it is based on stories some of them palpably 
 apocryphal, some of them brutalised in transmission, not one 
 of them, perhaps, resting on absolutely trustworthy evidence. 
 Everyone knows how stories beget stories and how fast they 
 grow. Given a man devoid of all hypocrisy, humorous, apt to 
 call a spade a spade, and he is certain to have fathered on him 
 much that he has never said, and much which he has said 
 wilfully metamorphosed. RioufTe avers that every sentence 
 he spoke in the Conciergerie was interlarded with oaths and 
 obscene expressions, and yet calmly records sentences, all of 
 them striking, some of them noble, which are free from all 
 such disfigurements. The truth is that Danton's habitual 
 conversation corresponded with the dignity of his speeches, 
 
HIS COMMON-SENSE 307 
 
 but that in lighter moments he used the language used by 
 every other man whom he met in society, though perhaps with 
 less care as to who might be the hearers. 
 
 His strong common-sense and moderation have been often 
 illustrated in previous chapters. 1 He was, in fact, intolerant on 
 one point only resistance to the Republic. Even in that he 
 was in practice laxer than in principle, but when once he had 
 made up his mind as to the necessity of a law he was for no 
 half-measures in enforcing it. Thus when it had been decided 
 that every possessor of grain should * declare ' the amount of 
 his stock, he said that confiscation was insufficient punishment 
 for disobedience, and that the offender should be liable to ten 
 years' imprisonment. And when it was urged that the law of 
 the maximum would work oppressively in individual instances 
 he replied 
 
 This is all mischievous carping. You must make the law 
 apply to all, because a legislator can only deal with the interests 
 of all. The people will pay no attention to petty inconveniences 
 consequent on the maximum being here and there less than 
 the standard you are going to make universal. But it will ap- 
 plaud a law which ensures food to our armies and to the State 
 at large. 
 
 In less vital questions he was always for tolerance. 2 He 
 had little liking for priests 3 and sacerdotal mummeries. 4 But 
 atheistic mummeries were, as we have seen, equally distasteful 
 to him, and he was strongly averse to depriving illiterate 
 peasants of the spiritual sustenance to which they were accus- 
 tomed. When a reduction of the salaries of the clergy was 
 
 1 For another and characteristic instance, see Moniteut , xvi. 357. He 
 proposed that no one should be admitted to the Pantheon till twenty 
 years after death. 
 
 2 ' L'Assemblee ne veut pas salarier aucun culte, mais elle execre la 
 persecution.' M. xviii. 493. 
 
 3 Le regne des pretres est passe.' M. xviii. 493. Le plus puissant 
 levier de la centre-revolution etait dans les pretres non assermentes. ' 
 Circular of Aug. 18, 1792. 
 
 4 M. xviii. 525. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 threatened he opposed it, arguing that only those should be 
 mulcted who refused to take the constitutional oath. 1 
 
 To apply precipitately philosophical principles which 
 personally I hold dear would be to turn France topsy-turvy. The 
 people, especially the country-people, are not ripe for them. 
 
 But while he would not interfere with creeds or deprive 
 priests of their pay he stipulated that the clergy should be 
 tolerant too. Bishops paid by the nation who refused to marry 
 priests ought, he said, to be liable to dismissal, and, if actuated 
 by treasonable motives, to one year's imprisonment. 
 
 We have safeguarded their salaries ; let them, in accordance 
 with their founder's principle, render to Caesar and the nation 
 is more than all the Caesars the things that are Caesar's. 2 
 
 His views on education were conceived in the same spirit. 
 
 The children of the poor should be educated at the expense 
 of the State. The great objection to this was, no doubt, the 
 financial one, but in sowing their vast republican field cost ought 
 not to be considered. Next to bread education was the people's 
 first necessity. 
 
 In another remarkable speech, which incidentally testified 
 to his own culture, he argued that school education was prefer- 
 able to education at home, in spite of what might be urged on 
 the score of parental love. 
 
 I am a father myself, more so than the aristocrats who 
 object, for they are not sure who are their children and who not, 
 and in measuring my individual interest with that of the State 
 I feel that my son belongs not to me but to the Republic ; and 
 that it is she who should teach him his duty in order that he may 
 serve her well. It has been said that country-people would 
 object to surrendering their children. Well, do not compel 
 them, but let them have the choice. Let there be Sunday 
 classes for such as prefer them. Out of practice will grow habit. 
 Wait for ideal perfection and you will have no education at 
 'all. . . . No one respects natural affection more than I. But 
 the interests of society demand that parental selfishness should 
 not make children dangerous to society. We ought to say to 
 them, ' We will not tear your children from you, but neither 
 
 1 M. xiv. 68. 2 M. xvii. 183. 
 
HIS RELIGION 309 
 
 shall you abstract them from the influence of the nation. In 
 national schools the child will suck republican milk.' 
 
 These advanced and enlightened views on education were, 
 however, in his eyes incomplete. To educate the youth of 
 France in republican principles was right, but to set the seal on 
 and consecrate the results of their educational system 
 
 there should be national games held in a vast building sacred 
 to the purpose and embellished by the greatest artists. Greece 
 had her Olympic games ; why should not France have her sans- 
 culottid days, and her people festivals at which they might 
 wofship the Supreme Being ? . . . For in annihilating the reign 
 of superstition we have no intention of establishing the reign of 
 atheism. 
 
 The above shows Danton's attitude towards religion. He 
 was what is now called an agnostic, but was respectful to the 
 belief of others. 1 It is said that he used to conduct his wife to 
 the church door, though he would not go in. 
 
 1 On June 21, 1791, he said at the Jacobins, ' I am about to speak as 
 if I were in the presence of God himself.' This is evidently a rhetorical 
 phrase furnishing no accurate clue to his own belief. 
 
 On November 30, 1792, with reference to abolition of State payment 
 of priests, he said in the Convention, according to the Moniteur, xiv. 620 : 
 ' On s'est appuye sur des idees philosophiques qui me sont cheres ; car je 
 ne connais d'autre bien que celui de 1'univers, d'autre culte que celui de 
 la justice et de la liberte.' Here 'bien' at first sight seems a mistake 
 for 'dieu,' but the principles which he held dear' were that no Church 
 should be subsidised, and the train of thought seems plain enough if we 
 read ' bien ' viz. ' I am for subsidising no particular sect, the well-being 
 of all being the sole end I have in view, and liberty and justice my sole 
 religion.' Both thought and words recall the circular of Aug. 18, 1792, 
 in which he states his intention to preserve ' non 1'egalite impossible des 
 biens mais une egalite des droits et du bonheur.' 
 
 The Journal des Debats et des Dlcrets^ however, has another version, 
 ' Je ne connais, moi, que le dieu de 1'univers, la liberte et la justice,' and 
 places several lines before these words what in the Moniteur follows them. 
 This version, with its afieu not Dieu and its next words ' L'homme des 
 champs y ajoute 1'homme consolateur,' seems a report of words meaning, 
 not * I recognise only one God, the God of the universe, of liberty, 
 and of justice,' but ' I recognise only one ruling principle for the world 
 
310 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 We have already seen that Danton's experience of his own 
 profession had convinced him that the administration of justice 
 ought by no means to rest solely in the hands of lawyers. In 
 this and in advocating a loan on behalf of the victims of the 
 Maison de Secours he followed the bent of a mind logical 
 enough when logical procedure seemed practicable, but never 
 a slave to hard and fast rule. So also he supported the * maxi- 
 mum,' not, no doubt, as in itself good, but as the lesser of two 
 evils. In finance he almost always supported the able and 
 honest Cambon. * Follow the example of Nature,' he said 
 when seconding that financier's sufficiently summary proposal 
 for dealing with * royal ' assignats above a certain value. 
 ' Nature looks to the preservation of the species and pays no 
 respect to individuals.' 
 
 In opposing the system by which public officials had to 
 deposit caution-money as a guarantee for their probity he showed 
 his usual shrewdness. ' You cannot ensure moral responsibility 
 by a pecuniary deposit. Such devices are relics of the old 
 
 viz. liberty and justice'? On April 19, 1793, he said: < Fra^ais,- vous 
 avez la liberte d'adorer la divinite qui vous parait digne de vos hommages,' 
 and * regardez que partout le peuple, degage des impulsions de malveillance, 
 reconnait que quiconque veut s'interposer entre lui et la divinite est un 
 tmposteur.' M. xvi. 183. So also he said on Nov. 26, 1793 : ' Le 
 peuple aura des fetes dans lesquelles il offrira de 1'encens a 1'Etre Supreme, 
 au maitre de la nature, car nous n'avons pas voulu aneantir le regne de la 
 superstition pour etablir le regne de Patheisme.' M. xviii. 528. Now, 
 such words as ' la divinite,' '1'Etre Supreme,' ' dieu,' no doubt indicate 
 belief of a sort, 
 
 ' the soul of a man, which is God, 
 He adores without altar or prayer,' 
 
 but they recall Croker's comment on Robespierre : * Any phrase to avoid the 
 acknowledgment of God\ Mercier's errand-boy, about fourteen years 
 old, told him after this fete "there is no longer a God, only Robespierre's 
 Supreme Being.'" Either of the two versions, in short, points to agnos- 
 ticism or vague theism rather than pronounced belief. Finally, if there 
 were any reasonable doubt as to his belief being anything more positive, it 
 would be dispelled by his famous words at his trial, ' My abode will soon 
 be dans le ntant? words which, however explained, are incompatible 
 with orthodox belief. 
 
WHY HE FAILED 311 
 
 corrupt regime. Right policy consists in appointing the right 
 man.' 
 
 Though the sanity of all his opinions on such subjects will 
 surprise those who have looked on him as a * bellowing blood- 
 drinker ' it would be as absurd to contend that he was infallible 
 in social and economic questions as to say that his foreign 
 policy succeeded or that he realised much of his Revolutionary 
 ideal. His one grand success consisted in ' saving France from 
 Brunswick.' But his failures were almost as creditable to him 
 as his success. He had created, he had saved, but he could 
 not consolidate the Republic. He had the will but not the 
 power. Napoleon had the power but not the will. Danton 
 was rendered helpless by the jealousies and fanaticisms of 
 meaner men. He gave pledges of disinterestedness over and 
 over again, resigning the Ministry of Justice and refusing to 
 serve on the Committee of Safety even when acclaimed to it 
 without his consent. 1 But his personal superiority, on which 
 he proudly relied, galled the Girondins first and the Hebertists 
 and Robespierrists afterwards more than tenure of office would 
 have done, while resignation of it made his enemies stronger for 
 offence and left himself nothing to rely on except his voice in 
 the Convention. 
 
 The last six months of his life were a single-handed 
 struggle under hopeless conditions, aggravated by broken 
 health and dejection at watching his hopes gradually fade 
 away. For it must have been dejection which dictated 
 these among other of his melancholy words during that 
 period : 
 
 Revolutions are like long and difficult voyages, during 
 which you must expect the wind to blow from all quarters 
 at once. The open sea is often less dangerous than the 
 harbour, for which one makes with all sails set and never a 
 thought of the narrow shoal on which sometimes the ship goes 
 to wreck. 
 
 The factions confronting him had no desire for peace 
 1 M. xvii. 596. 
 
312 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 abroad, because war was an excuse for keeping up revolutio- 
 nary despotism at home. Danton having no personal ambition 
 to gratify, craving only for himself a, quiet country life in his 
 old home at Arcis, would have concluded peace, would have 
 granted an amnesty, would have restored normal government, 
 would have fostered trade and industry, would have pursued 
 as the proper object of a republic the comfort of the citizen. 
 Equal law, equal chances of education, enough to eat these 
 were the three things which Frenchmen had not had under the 
 Monarchy. In Danton's eyes they constituted the essence of 
 a republic. It was the King's vision of 'a fowl in the pot' 
 repeated, but with something over and above possession of the 
 fowl. 1 
 
 Such aims stamp Danton as a true statesman apart from 
 the genius he displayed in marshalling France against invasion. 
 Unfortunately in one thing, without which greatness is not 
 supreme greatness, he was lacking. Though magnificently 
 energetic in an emergency, he was not, as the confidential 
 letters of his own friends prove, 2 constitutionally painstaking. 
 He was over-sanguine and unmethodical. He had not the 
 patience to follow up a victory which he had won by 
 a coup de main. To use a homely simile, he had the inven- 
 tion of the architect, the boldness of the builder, but was 
 without the sleepless vigilance of the clerk of the works. He 
 was too careless to meet ruse with ruse, to play off party 
 against party, to seek anxiously for a personal following in the 
 clubs, the Committees, the press. When fighting against 
 Monarchy he courted and welcomed all allies. But, that 
 
 1 In his circular of Aug. 18, 1792, to the Courts of Judicature he wrote : 
 ' Les tribunaux me trouveront le meme homme, dont toutes les pensees 
 n'ont eu pour objet que la liberte politique et individuelle, le maintien des 
 lois, la tranquillite publique, 1'unite des quatre-vingt-trois departements, 
 la splendeur de 1'Etat, la prosperite du peuple frar^ais, et non 1'egalite 
 impossible des biens, mais une egalite de droits et de bonheur.' 
 
 2 ' Oublie pour moi ta paresse ordinaire.' Delacroix to Danton, M.-T. 
 vi. 489. ' C'est bien ta nonchalance et ta mollesse qui t'ont perdu.' 
 Delacroix, quoted by Prudhomme, Hist. Gen. &c. i. 328. 
 
STATUE AT % ARCIS 3 1 3 
 
 battle won, he preferred to stand alone. He had plenty of 
 friends but no party. When in his independence he procured 
 the release of Vincent and Ronsin, when he deprecated Riihl's 
 rebuke to the Commune, he thought he was counteracting 
 over-despotic tendencies sufficiently. In reality he was warning 
 and arming his enemies against himself. Confident in the un- 
 selfishness of his own intentions and in his own strength, he 
 could not bring himself to believe that he would fall a victim 
 to the machinations of ' shallow scoundrels.' And indeed 
 there is something ironical in so much force, eloquence, and 
 popularity having been discomfited by such Lilliputian an- 
 tagonists; something grotesque and monstrous in his having 
 been executed on the charge of conspiracy with the foreigner 
 against France. 
 
 On July 14, 1891, exactly one hundred and two years after 
 the taking of the Bastille, the inhabitants of Arcis-sur-Aube 
 saw unveiled their most famous citizen's statue. It stands 
 there, bold and commanding as the man was in life, with one 
 hand raised and the lips seeming still to speak. Many a 
 pregnant and eloquent word uttered by them must have 
 thronged to the memory of the beholders. But to those who 
 thought how and by what hands he fell, and how history has 
 traduced him, it may have seemed that this one of all his 
 sayings would most appropriately be graven on the pedestal : 
 
 * Ce riest qu'a ceux qui ont re$u quelques talents politiques 
 que je rrfadresse, et non a homines stupides qui ne savent faire 
 parler que leurs passions? 
 
APPENDICES 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 DANTOWS INCOME 
 
 ON March 29, 1787, he bought the office of Avocat aux Conseils 
 du Roi for 78,000 francs +1,050 francs for law-expenses, paying 
 56,000 francs down. 36,000 of these were borrowed from the 
 Demoiselle du Hauttoir, and 15,000 from his father-in-law, Char- 
 pentier, these 15,000 being a portion of the 20,000 francs dowry he 
 was to have with his wife. 
 
 He was enabled to borrow by his relations becoming security 
 for him to the amount of 90,000 francs, as they might well do, the 
 office being worth 80,000 francs and ensuring a good income. 
 
 On June 12 he paid another 10,000 francs (66,000 in all) when 
 the formalities for the transference of the office were completed ; 
 and on December 3, 1789, two years eight months after the 
 purchase, he paid the remainder, 12,000 francs, though not bound 
 to pay the whole till March 1791. A debt due to the vendor, of 
 1 2,000 francs, was included in the purchase, so that he had 
 
 Francs 
 
 36,000 (borrowed) 
 
 20,000 (dowry) 
 
 12,000 (patrimony) 
 
 12,000 (debt to office received by him) 
 
 80,000 with which to pay for his office. 
 
 But how did he live ? i, on the proceeds from his office ; 2, on 
 the interest of his patrimony, for he was not obliged to complete 
 the payment for his office till four years from March 1787 ; 3, on 
 any private earnings he may have made ; 4, on his father-in-law's 
 
316 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 bounty : 5, on that of his uncle and aunt at Troyes, he being their 
 heir. 
 
 In 1791 he bought national land to the value of 85,000 francs. 
 How did he pay for it? The State repaid him 71,000 francs for 
 his office on its suppression, and though he paid for most of his 
 purchases (March 24, 48,200 francs ; April 12, 8,300 francs 
 April 13, 25,300 francs) before receiving the money from the 
 State (September 27), yet on April 14, which was the date of the 
 suppression of the office, his certificate of having held it became 
 equivalent to cash, as the law allowed him to purchase with it up 
 to half its value. The rest he borrowed from his father-in-law, or 
 as much of it as he wanted, for he must have had savings of his 
 own, having received 90,000 francs as Avocat. His property was, 
 therefore, in 1791, about 85,000 francs, and when executed this 
 and some 5,000 francs personalty was all he left to his children. 
 The above does not include such income as he derived from the 
 various offices he filled and his pay as Deputy. 1 Madame Roland, 
 who thought him penniless, argued that because he was penniless 
 he was bribed. We, who know he was not penniless, might answer 
 with more force that, as he was not penniless, he was not bribed. 
 
 The country houses he is said to have kept up belonged to his 
 father-in-law. 
 
 By the above statement of Danton's sources of income the 
 ground is cleared for consideration of Mirabeau's charges of 
 venality, supplemented by those of Lafayette, in more detail than 
 seemed convenient in the text. 
 
 1. Louis Blanc made a strong point of Mirabeau's charges 
 occurring in a private letter to Lamarck not meant for publication. 
 Dr. Robinet has shown that Mirabeau expressly told Lamarck 
 that he wished his papers to be published some day. 
 
 2. Mirabeau's charge was made directly after the publication 
 of No. 67 of the ' Revolutions de France et de Brabant,' by 
 Camille Desmoulins. This, Mirabeau says, was inspired by 
 Danton. In it Desmoulins talked of the passion of St. Mirabeau, 
 and described how the sweat rolled down Mirabeau's face as he 
 replied to the attacks made on him at the Jacobins. Afterwards 
 he said that by this number he had forfeited Mirabeau's friendship. 
 Here, then, is a plain reason for Mirabeau's enmity, and his 
 enmity naturally took the shape of charges of venality. 
 
 3. To whom was Danton sold ? Mirabeau says Danton had an 
 
 1 Eighteen francs a day. 
 
APPENDIX A 317 
 
 understanding with Beaumetz and Chapelier. But these men 
 were attacked by Desmoulins in No. 67, which Danton, according 
 to Mirabeau, had inspired. 
 
 4. Mirabeau asserts that Danton' was bribed, in a letter to 
 Lamarck. Six months later, when Mirabeau was dead, Lamarck, 
 writing to an intimate friend, bewailed the composition of the new 
 Assembly, of which, he said three-quarters were nonentities and 
 the rest incendiaries, and proceeded, * A man named Danton will 
 also perhaps be elected.' Now if Danton was a nonentity he 
 certainly would not have got a bribe of 30,000 francs from a 
 bankrupt Court. If he was an incendiary he was not in the 
 Court's pay. 
 
 5. Elsewhere Mirabeau speaks of Danton as the enemy of the 
 Court and perhaps the tool of the Lameths. 
 
 In short, Mirabeau suspected Danton of being employed by his 
 enemies. To revenge himself for No. 67 he told lies about him. 
 
 Lafayette says Danton had given a rece ; pt to Montmorin for a 
 bribe of 100,000 francs, and a note in his Memoirs says that these 
 100,000 were nominally compensation for Dan ton's office, which 
 really was only worth 10,000, so that 90,000 of the 100,000 were a 
 bribe. He goes on to say that Danton had received other sums, 
 e.g. one of 50,000 before August 10, but that Lafayette only knew 
 of the 100,000, of which Danton himself told him at the Hotel de 
 Ville. 
 
 Now (i) this note is not by Lafayette. The charge, therefore, 
 of the 50,000 francs bribe is an anonymous charge, based, no 
 doubt, on gossip. Lafayette's charge is based on ' the lie which 
 is half a truth.' Danton at the Hotel de Ville spoke to Lafayette 
 of what he spoke equally undisguisedly in public when elected 
 joint deputy-procureur as ' le remboursement notoire dune charge 
 qui riexiste plus? If it had been a bribe would he have boasted 
 of it, and to Lafayette of all men in the world ? 
 
 2. In specifying the service for which Danton was paid 
 Lafayette says it was for acting as a spy at the Jacobins and to 
 report what went on there to the Court, a curious service to perform 
 where everything was transacted publicly. 
 
 Bertrand de Molleville says it was to get measures passed 
 there agreeable to the Court. If so, the art with which he went 
 to work was most successfully concealed. 
 
 Brissot says it was to discredit the Revolution by driving it to 
 excesses. 
 
318 LIFE OF D ANTON 
 
 All three, therefore, differ as to his service, but all three agree 
 as to his having earned his pay. Louis Blanc, however, differs 
 from them in this, and says he took the money but did nothing for 
 it. It is quite certain that he did nothing for it. May we not say 
 that it is equally certain that he never took the money, and except 
 for service rendered would never have been offered it by the 
 Court ? 
 
 There is no sign where the money, if received, went to. 
 Mirabeau, with his pay, bought a great library, a splendid mansion, 
 magnificent furniture, and lavished it on mistresses. Danton 
 lived in a small dingy house. 1 All its appurtenances were on the 
 most modest scale. The furniture of the drawing-room was worth 
 less than 40!. He was so domestic in his tastes that his revilers 
 founded odious jests on his uxoriousness and its results. Who were 
 his mistresses? The moment we look for facts we find there are 
 none, nothing but stories such, for instance, as Louis Blanc tells 
 on the authority of Godefroy Cavaignac, who gave it on the autho- 
 rity of his mother, viz. that at the house of Cavaignac Danton said 
 over his wine that his party's turn was come to enjoy life, 
 sumptuous houses, dainty morsels, stuffs of silk and gold, the 
 ' women one dreams of,' &c., and then added, ' But do you think I 
 cannot play sans-culotte with the rest of them, and,' added he with 
 a cynical gesture, ' montrer mon derrttre aux passants ? ' 
 
 This is gossip, second-hand gossip, gossip of a woman, and a 
 woman who would plainly not let the nature of the gossip prevent 
 her retailing it. M. Despois, in criticising it, says that the words 
 ' les femmes dont on reve ' are not eighteenth-century words, and 
 that Danton * revait peu: ' 2 However that may be, we know that 
 Danton's wives were the women to whom he was devoted, and 
 that the sumptuous houses &c. did hot exist. M. Despois' 
 article, from which much of the above is taken, appeared in 
 July 1857, and was answered most lamely by L. Blanc. 3 
 
 Taine (translated by Durand), vol. ii. p. 193, suggests that 
 Danton bought property 'under third parties,' who kept it after 
 his death, and founds himself on * investigations of Blache at 
 Choisy-sur-Seine, where a certain Fauvel seems to have been 
 Danton's assumed name.' From this one might infer that 
 
 1 ' Petit appartement du passage du Commerce dans la triste maison qui 
 fait arcade et voftte entre le passage et la rue (triste elle-me'me) des Cordeliers. ' 
 Michelet, b. viii. c. xviii. 
 
 2 Vie Privte, edit. 1865. 3 Cf. Vie Privte. 
 
APPENDIX A 319 
 
 ' Fauvel' was merely an alias of Danton. In vol. iii. p. 238, how- 
 ever, Fauvel is represented as, what he really was, the owner of a 
 house at Choisy frequented by Danton and other well-known men 
 of the time. Apparently it is on the strength of the evidence of 
 Fauvel's gardener that Danton is suspected of having bought 
 property through Fauvel, and of having owned the house at 
 Choisy. The evidence was of this sort : Being asked the leading 
 question whether he had not seen Danton exercise rights of 
 ownership in the house and its belongings, such as taking up trees 
 &c., he answered that he had seen Danton have work done on the 
 embellishment of the house, had seen him walking in the garden 
 with Fauvel, and visiting with Fauvel work going on in the house 
 as well as the garden. He said, too, that he had seen Delacroix, 
 the two Robespierres, Didier, Benoit, &c., there. Later on he 
 said he had seen 'them' at banquets where much wine was 
 drunk and bottles were broken, and had seen ' them ' often spend 
 the night at Fauvel's, and that he knew Danton had lodgings 
 there. What there is in all this to blacken Danton it is hard to 
 see. It would be more to the purpose if evidence other than a 
 blundering rustic's were given of property purchased by Fauvel 
 for Danton, and of its subsequent history. All that can be fairly 
 assumed is that Fauvel kept a sort of club where Danton went 
 occasionally and slept, that he (who, as we know, was fond of 
 gardening) suggested or directed improvements in the garden, and 
 perhaps in other parts of the house than that in his own occupa- 
 tion, with Fauvel's assent. 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 CHARGES OF MALVERSATION IN BELGIUM* 
 
 ROBESPIERRE, in his notes given to St. Just, wrote : ' // avail la 
 main dans la caisse de la Belgique] and * Dans le pays de 
 Delacroix on ne parle que des serviettes de f Archiduchesse 
 rapportttes de la Belgique et de'marque'es dans le pays? 
 
 1 The total expenditure of the seven Commissioners in Belgium, of whom 
 Danton was one, from November 30, 1792, to April 2, 1793, was 29,400 livres 
 in cash, 10,600 in assignats. Aulard's Recueil des Actes du Comitt de 
 Salut Public, i. 285. 
 
320 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 About these remarks we note that Robespierre makes no 
 charge against Danton of stealing table-linen. On the contrary 
 he seems to confine it to Delacroix. His charge against Danton 
 refers, as far as it has any basis, to allegations of misappropriated 
 money, confuted, on Cambon's testimony, by Danton, April I, 1793, 
 and, on Lebrun's testimony, by Delacroix, February 13, 1794. 
 But as St. Just purposely mixed up the story of the mutiny in 
 the prison with that of the mutiny at the trial, so he purposely 
 mixed up the charge against Delacroix with the charge against 
 Danton, insinuating that the latter was guilty of both. 
 
 What Levasseur said is more important. At the Jacobins he 
 stated that when Belgium was being evacuated the authorities 
 of Bethune wrote to say that they had stopped two carriages 
 laden with property, as the drivers had no passports, and that 
 these drivers said the property belonged to Danton and Delacroix ; 
 that Danton and Delacroix got this letter handed over to them by 
 a clerk of the Committee of Correspondence without the know- 
 ledge of the Committee of Safety, and then came to the Conven- 
 tion to complain of the stoppage of their baggage and procure an 
 order for its release. In his Memoirs, published in 1831, 
 Levasseur tells this story over again, but with more circumstance. 
 Danton, he says, as a politician was unassailable, but as a man 
 not of entire probity. He goes on to say that he himself at the 
 Committee of Correspondence received the Bethune letter announ- 
 cing the arrival of three carriages laden with baggage addressed 
 to Danton and Delacroix. [Here we see the two carriages multi- 
 plied into three. Query Was he on the Committee f He was 
 not when it was appointed in 1792.] He goes on to say that at 
 the time he suspected that this baggage contained what they had 
 embezzled, and that he had proof of it a few days before Danton 
 was arrested, for St. Just had come to him and asked for the 
 letter [of which Levasseur apparently had been talking] that they 
 went to the bureau of the Committee of Defence, but it was not 
 to be found, and the secretary, on being questioned, said that 
 Danton had obtained it under promise of bringing it back, saying 
 he wanted to show it to Guiton-Morveaux, President of the Con- 
 vention. The President denied having seen the letter, and said 
 that Danton merely asked for a passport for his luggage, which he 
 had given without hesitation. 
 
 This is a circumstantial story ; but, like so many stories against 
 Danton, it collapses when pricked with a pin. Among Danton ' s 
 
APPENDIX B 321 
 
 papers was found (i) a letter from Dumoulin, Commissaire au'x 
 Saisies dans la Belgique, announcing his arrest, and asking 
 Danton to take steps for his release ; (2) a letter from the Bdthune 
 officials saying they had made an inventory of the contents of the 
 baggage, and had written to the President of the Convention, but 
 getting no answer from him wrote to Danton, because the goods 
 were directed to him and Delacroix, and they wished to know if 
 they belonged to them. 
 
 Now let us consider the answers made by Delacroix and 
 Danton at their trial. Danton said : '// rtsulte du prods-verbal 
 qu'il rfy a a mot que mes chiffons et un corset de molleton. Lebas 
 somme" m'a donne 1 communication ' i.e. that he had nothing in the 
 carriages but some articles of wearing apparel, that the ^proch- 
 verbal 1 proved this, and that Lebas on being summoned communi- 
 cated the facts. 
 
 Delacroix, on the other hand, admitted having some table- 
 linen which he had bought a bargain, saying that it had to be 
 put on the carriages laden with property carried off by the 
 generals, and that the carriage containing it must not be confused 
 with the other carriages which had been despatched by all the 
 members of the Commission conjointly. 
 
 This tallies with the significance of Dumoulin's signature, 
 ' Commissaire aux Saisies de la Belgiquej which seems to show 
 that the writer was not a man in the employ of Danton and 
 Delacroix, but in charge of Government property. 
 
 Here, then, we have (i) Delacroix explaining that his and 
 Danton's property was only a portion of the goods on the carriages. 
 
 (2) Danton in Delacroix's presence denying he had any table- 
 linen. 
 
 (3) Delacroix in Danton's presence admitting that he had the 
 linen, and adding, * I ' (not 'We') * bought it.' 
 
 Surely he thus takes the whole responsibility for the linen on 
 to his own shoulders. 
 
 We are not concerned here with Delacroix's personal defence, 
 but may note (i) what Legendre said when he 'rolled in the mud ' 
 the night after Danton's arrest, viz. that he never had esteemed 
 Delacroix as much as Danton, and (2) that it was Delacroix, not 
 Danton, whom Herman questioned at the trial. 
 
 It is clear that an inventory was made, and that Danton 
 appealed to it as proof of his innocence. Levasseur saw it in 
 April 1793, an d says his suspicions were aroused; but if that 
 
 Y 
 
gJ2 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 were all, how could the same document, even if it had been forth- 
 coming, have become a proof of guilt in April 1794 ? Why, agaift, 
 should not St. Just have told the whole story at the trial if it were so 
 damning ? By itself it would have been quite sufficient to condemn 
 Danton to death. Why should he have left Levasseur to tell it 
 after Danton's death ? As for Danton's purloining the letter, 
 what would have been the use of doing so? It was known to 
 Levasseur. It was known to the Committee of Correspondence, on 
 which some Girondins sat, besides Fayau, whose animus against 
 Danton we have seen. It was known to the Committee of Defence* 
 Lastly, when, and under what circumstances, did Levasseur 
 make his accusation? He made it just after Danton's death, 
 when, like Legendre, many men 'rolled in the mud.' And he 
 made it on the direct invitation of Robespierre that anyone who 
 knew anything about the ' conspiracy ' should get up and declare 
 it a n invitation to commit perjury in order to escape the axe. 
 
 Jt may be conjectured, therefore, either that some of the 
 JRobespierrist gang purloined the letter, because it did not prove 
 the charge which they still meant to insinuate at the trial, or that 
 Levasseur (who very likely did suspect something originally, 
 because he may have thought that all the carriage-loads belonged 
 to Danton and Delacroix) said what he did at the Jacobins to 
 curry favour with Robespierre, and afterwards, when he wished to 
 iustify and excuse it to a world become anti-Robespierrist, added 
 corroboratory details ; converted, i.e., a modicum of truth into a 
 mendacious tale and afterwards stuck to his tale. 1 
 
 It should be added that some doubt has been thrown on the 
 authenticity of his Memoirs and that in any case they are not 
 regarded as wholly trustworthy. 
 
 M. Aulard's exposition of Danton's accounts has been noticed, 
 p. 153. It may be added here that neither the text nor an analysis 
 of the letter of the Executive Council, there mentioned as exculpa- 
 ting Danton, was entered in the prods-verbal of the Convention, 
 which simply noted the receipt of it, and to this culpable omission, 
 to which he was too careless to call attention, much of the subse- 
 quent defamation of him was due. M. Aulard sums up his 
 argument thus : ' With regard to his accounts of extraordinary 
 expenditure, I have produced them. His accounts of secret ex- 
 penditure were received by the Executive Council, which approved 
 of them in detail, and notified its approval to the Convention,' 
 
 1 Cf. Vie Privte. 
 
APPENDIX C 323 
 
 APPENDIX C 
 THE PLOT OF DE BATZ 
 
 ELIE LACOSTE, in the name of the two Committees, read a report 
 about this conspiracy on May 17. He said that Chabot, Delacroix, 
 Danton, and Basire for a long iime before July 1793 met Baron de 
 Batz four times a week at a house called the Hermitage in 
 Charonne, and there amid drunken orgies plotted a rescue of 
 Louis on his way to execution, and a spiriting away of the Queen 
 and Dauphin. 
 
 The following year the Baron printed an answer to this, and 
 in it said : ' I never saw Danton or Delacroix in my life. I had no 
 connection whatever with them, and never sat at the same table. 
 I defy anyone to produce any evidence to the contrary.' 
 
 For corroboratory proofs that this was the truth cf. Robinet's 
 * Proces des Dantonistes,' pp. 325-330. 
 
 It is very doubtful if any attempt to rescue Louis was made. 
 
 It is amusing to find Royalist writers omitting Danton' s name 
 in telling the story. Why ? Either because they are ashamed to 
 include it or because from their point of view Danton, in joining 
 the plot, would merit praise ! 
 
 Addendum 
 
 Since p. 28 was in type, the kindness of a friend has enabled me to 
 procure from M. Claretie confirmation of what is conjectured in the note 
 as to C. Desmoulins' residence in August 1792. M. Claretie says that he 
 was mistaken, and that C. Desmoulins lived in a house ' situee en face de 
 celle de Danton ' : i.e., it would seem, on the south side of the Rue des 
 Cordeliers, which ran between the Cordeliers district on the south and 
 the Cour du Commerce on the north. In any case he was living near, 
 not in the same house as, Danton, in August 1792. 
 
 Errata 
 
 P. 107, for Girondins read des Girondins. 
 P. i ^g, for in December read December i. 
 
 MRSIT1 Of 
 
 
SYNOPSIS 
 
 DANTON 
 
 Parentage, I 
 
 Boyhood, 2, 3, 4 
 
 Profession, 5 
 
 Culture, 6 
 
 Pleads for the poor, 6 
 
 Marriage. Avocat, 7 
 
 Offered Chancellor's Secretary- 
 ship, 8 
 
 d' Anton, 8 
 
 Income, 8, 9 
 
 Charges of venality, 9-12, and 
 Appendix A 
 
 What made him a politician, 
 13-19 
 
 President of Cordeliers District, 
 20 
 
 Mercier's opinion of, 21 
 
 Defends Marat, 22 
 
 Prosecuted by Chatelet, 22 
 
 At the Bastille, 23 
 
 Prompts march to Versailles, 
 
 23 
 
 First mentioned by Moniteur, 
 
 23 
 
 Charged with Orleanism, 24 
 Mirabeau's charges against, 25 
 Cordeliers vote of confidence 
 
 in, 26 
 Fights Commune for Mandat 
 
 Impe"ratif, 27 
 Member of Commune, 27 
 His abode, 28 
 A monarchist, 29 
 Rejected for Municipal Council, 
 
 30 
 
 Attacks Ministers, 31 
 Elected ' Notable,' 31 
 
 DANTON 
 
 Commandant of Cordeliers 
 
 battalion, 32 
 Administrator to Department, 
 
 Letter to Electoral Assem- 
 bly, 36 , 
 Opposes King's journey to St. 
 
 Cloud, 37 
 
 First well reported, 43 
 Attacks Sieyes, 44 
 Attacks Lafayette, 45 
 B. de Molleville's letter to, 45 
 His Cordeliers address, 51 
 Speech against King, 52 
 For sequestration of throne, 53 
 Appeals to the people, 53 
 For petitioning for dethrone- 
 ment, 55 
 Speech on the Champ de Mars, 
 
 56 
 
 Flight to England, 57 
 Rejected for Legislative As- 
 sembly, 58 
 
 Joint Deputy Procureur, 58 
 Speech on election, 58 
 A Democrat, July 1791, 63 
 Always Cordelier, 63 
 Share in Champ de Mars peti- 
 tions, 65 
 
 For banishing the Queen, 72 
 Against war, 73 
 Growing importance, 74 
 Organises August 10, 76-85 
 Visits Arcis, 85 
 Action on August 9-10, 85- 
 
 100 
 Minister of Justice, 101 
 
326 
 
 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 DANTON 
 
 Member for Paris, 102 
 Sources of weakness, 102 
 Refuses to abandon Paris, 103 
 Attempts to prevent massacres, 
 
 109-116 
 
 His de Faudace speech, 116 
 Merciful order of, 119 
 Saves prisoners, 122 
 Royer-Collard's judgment of, 
 
 122 
 
 Disavows massacres, 124 
 Mme. Roland's charges against, 
 
 125-130 
 
 Lafayette's charge against, 126 
 Prudhomme's charges against, 
 
 130-137 
 
 Peltier's charges against, 137 
 Taine's charges against, 139 
 Von Sybel's charge against, 
 
 139-142 
 Speech on resigning Ministry, 
 
 H3 
 
 Exonerated by Marat, 146 
 His opinion of Marat, 147 
 Implacability of Mme. Roland, 
 
 149 
 
 His accounts, 149 
 His opinion of Marat, 150 
 Against docking priests' 
 
 salaries, 152 
 For helping Maison de Secours 
 
 victims, 152 
 For liberty of press, 153 
 As diplomatist, 155 
 Chief man in Paris, 1 56 
 His agents and policy in 
 
 England, 157-159 
 His policy in Belgium, 160-164 
 On the King's execution, 166 
 Speech on Lepelletier's death, 
 
 1 68 
 
 Death of wife, 171 
 His letter to his wife, 172 
 Speech on Dumouriez, 173 
 Speech on national danger, 
 
 173 * 
 
 Speech on debtors, 174 
 On foreign policy, 175 
 On revolutionary tribunal, 178 
 On reorganising Executive, 17 
 Miss on to Dumouriez, 182 
 
 DANTON 
 
 Speech stimulating Convention, 
 
 183 
 Defends his conduct in Belgium, 
 
 185 
 
 Answers Penieres and La- 
 source, 188-95 
 
 Proposes Sans-culotte army, 196 
 
 One of Committee of Safety, 
 197 
 
 Conflict with Guadet, 199 
 
 Denounces Orleans, 199 
 
 Renounces propaganda, 200 
 
 On religious liberty and taxing 
 ^ the rich, 201 
 Answers Isnard, 202-6 
 t Attacks Committee of Twelve, 
 211 
 
 Auction on June 1-2, 1793,213- 
 ' 219 ' 
 
 Second marriage, 220 
 
 Superintends foreign affairs, 
 
 > 22 1-226 
 
 fO\\ aliens, and illiterate voters, 
 228 
 
 Speech on June 13, 1793, 228- 
 230 
 
 On discrimination in punish- 
 ment, and offensive war, 230- 
 231 
 
 Defends himself to Jacobins, 
 231 
 
 Not re-elected on Committee of 
 Safety, 232 
 
 For extending its powers, 233 
 
 Defends Garat. Shrewd re- 
 cruiting speech, 235 
 
 For stern measures, 236-237 
 
 How affected by Marat's death, 
 
 239 
 
 Would save Girondins, 240 
 On a Sans-culotte army, 242 
 Supports the Maximum, 243 
 Supports Committee of Safety, 
 
 244 
 
 On the war in La Vendee, 245 
 Conflict with Hebert, 245 
 Retires to Arcis, 246 
 His ideal of government, 248 
 His ideas of clemency, 250-253 
 Robespierre defends him at the 
 
 Jacobins, 256-258 
 
SYNOPSIS 
 
 327 
 
 DANTON 
 
 Appeals for concord, 260 
 Involved in Desmoulins's 
 
 quarrels, 261-264 
 Speaks for Fabre d'Eglantine, 
 
 266 
 
 Denounced by Billaud, 266 
 Snubs songs in Convention, 
 
 267 
 
 Opposes Desmoulins, 268 
 Speaks for Dalbarade and 
 
 Chasles, 269-270 
 Not effete January 1794, 270 
 Why hated, 272 
 Pleads for Vincent and Ronsin, 
 
 274 
 
 Attacked by St. Just, 275-276 
 His common-sense, 277 
 
 DANTON 
 
 His attitude at Hlrault's ar- 
 rest, 278 
 
 Opposes Bourdon, 279 
 
 His last speech in Convention, 
 280 
 
 Last meeting with Robespierre, 
 282 
 
 His contempt for Robespierre, 
 283 
 
 Betrayed by Robespierre, 284- 
 285 
 
 In the Luxembourg, 286 
 
 St. Just's report against, 287 
 
 His trial, 289-295 
 
 His execution, 303 
 
 Estimate of character &c., 
 305-312 
 
INDEX 
 
 AI.BIN, ST., i, 13 
 
 Alexandre, 91 
 
 Alquier, 134, 135 
 
 Amans, 299 
 
 Amar, 266, 267, 301 
 
 Amaranthe, St., Mme., 297 
 
 Angouleme, Duchesse d', 104 
 
 Anthoine, 52, 53, 80 
 
 Antoinette, Marie, 18, 23, 34, 42, 
 
 . 43 69-72 74, 75, 86, 89, 95, 
 
 98, 99, 104, 105, 118, 125, 157, 
 
 225, 239, 250, 273, 323 
 Artois, Comte d', 17, 43 
 Artois, Mile, d', 29 
 Aulard, 21, 24, 28, 32, 62, 63-66, 
 
 98, 136, 138, 149, 150, 319, 322 
 
 BACON, 116 
 
 Bailly, 22, 24, 30, 31, 35-37, 40, 
 
 44, 55 5 6 > 6 3, 293 
 Barbaroux, 25, 86, 106, 125, 145, 
 
 150, 207, 217, 293 
 Barentin, 8, 13 
 Barere, 97, 98, 161, 177, 21 1, 214, 
 
 218, 221, 243, 247, 262, 291, 
 
 306 
 
 Barnave, 24, 25, 54, 95, 287 
 Barthelemy, 122 
 Basire, 323 
 Batz, De, 273, 323 
 Beaulieu, 139 
 Beaumarchais, 14 
 Beaumetz, 317 
 Beaumont- Vassy, 28 
 Beccaria, 6 
 
 Bedford, Duke of, 1 58 
 Benoit, 319 
 Beon, i 
 Beranger, 8 
 Bethune, Due de, 16 
 
 Beurnonville, 180 
 Billaud-Varenne, 55, 76, 102, 177, 
 
 243, 244, 250, 260, 266-268, 282- 
 
 286, 299 
 Eire, 54, 139 
 Biron, 226 
 Biroteau, 189, 190 
 Blache, 318 
 
 Blanc, Louis, 290, 301, 316, 318 
 Blordier-Langlois, 140, 141 
 Boileau, 2 
 
 Bonaparte, 35, 99, 107, 175 
 Bonne -Carrere, 37 
 Bonneville, 55 
 Bordeaux, Archbishop of, 31 
 Bosc, 128 
 
 Bouchotte, 218, 269, 278, 281 
 Bougeart, i, 20, 28, 35, 63 
 Bourdon, 245, 262, 263, 268-271, 
 
 274, 278, 281 
 Breard, 168, 170 
 Breteuil, Due de, 42, 71 
 Brissot, 10, 11, 48, 49, 55, 57, 72, 
 
 74, 75, 108, in, 115, 134, 148, 
 
 159, 168, 176, 177, 207, 208, 
 
 228, 240, 266, 293, 317 
 Brunswick, Duke of, 10, 70, 79, 
 
 102-105, 107, 114, 310 
 Buffon, 6 
 Burke, 174 
 Butler, A. J., 98 
 Buzot, 125, 145, 205, 207 
 
 CALONNE, 42 
 
 Cambon, 109, 145, 149, 152, 161, 
 
 184, 185, 190, 191, 218, 221,. 
 
 264, 291, 292, 295, 310, 320 
 Camus, 161, 162, 164, 191, 192 
 Gamut, Georges, I 
 Carlyle, 71, 78 
 
INDEX 
 
 329 
 
 Carnot, 78, 99, 288 
 
 Carrier, 69 
 
 Cassagnac, G. de, 99 
 
 Cavaignac, 214, 318 
 
 Ce"rutti, 36 
 
 Chabot, 10, in, 273, 292, 322 
 
 Champion, 14, 19 
 
 Chapelier, 317 
 
 Charavay, 140, 172 
 
 Charles I. of England, 30 
 
 Charolais, Comte de, 17 
 
 Charpentier, 7, 315 
 
 Charpentier, Antoinette, 7 
 
 Charpentier, Mme., 7, 87, 88 
 
 Chartres, due de, 138 
 
 Chasles, 270 
 
 Chatham, 305 
 
 Chaumette, 10, 96, 210, 239, 241, 
 
 271 
 
 Che"nier, 32 
 Choudieu, ill 
 Christie, 157 
 Clairfait, 103 
 Claretie, 14, 28, 29, 323 
 Claviere, 84, 149, 156, 210, 218 
 Clermont, Bishop of, 37 
 Clootz, 265 
 Coffinhal, 290 
 Cobourg, 256, 265 
 Collot d'Herbois, 37, 58, 205, 235, 
 
 261 
 
 Comte, 63 
 
 Condorcet, 10, 64, 82, 144 
 Corday, Charlotte, 231, 240 
 Corneille, 6 
 Coup^, 254, 255, 257 
 Courtois de 1'Aube, 8, 9, 12 
 Couihon, 250, 281, 298 
 Crohare, 27 
 Croker, 291 
 Cromwell, 30, 34, 167 
 Custine, 233, 250 
 
 DALBARADE, 269 
 
 Damiens, 17 
 
 Dampierre, 226, 259 
 
 Danton (Gabrielle), Mme., 28, 89, 
 
 171, 172 
 Danton, Jacques, father of Danton, 
 
 i 
 
 Danton, Marie-Madeleine, mother 
 of Danton, I 
 
 Danton (Sophie Ge"ly), Mme., 220, 
 287 
 
 D'Argenson, 14 
 
 D'Artois, Comte, 17, 43 
 
 D'Artois, Mile., 29 
 
 D'Aubigny, Vilain, 92, 100, 282, 
 283, 292 
 
 Dauphin, 323 
 
 David, 246, 301 
 
 Deforgues, 224, 234, 282 
 
 Delacroix, 4, 10, 110-112, 117, 130, 
 164, 171, 182, 184, 187, 189, 190, 
 192, 193, 209, 217, 218, 221, 273, 
 275, 285-287, 289, 292, 294- 
 296, 299, 301, 302, 312, 319- 
 
 el? 
 
 Delessart, 157, 158 
 
 Delmas, 190, 221, 232 
 
 Demoy, 56 
 
 Descrots, 14 
 
 Desmoulins, Camille, 4, 10, 26, 28, 
 29, 39, 40, 49, 50, 52, 55, 58, 
 77, 87-90, 97, loo, 121, 132, 
 250, 252, 257, 260-266, 268- 
 
 271, 274, 275, 284-287, 289, 291, 
 300-302, 316, 317, 323 
 
 Desmoulins, Lucile, 28, 85, 87-89, 
 232, 287, 291, 298, 305 
 
 Desodoards, 8 
 
 Despois, I, 318 
 
 Didier, 319 
 
 Diederichsen, 295 
 
 Dillon, 298 
 
 Ducher, 157 
 
 Ducos, 240 
 
 Ducray, 302 
 
 Ducrot, 29 
 
 Dufraisse, 92 
 
 Dumas, 136 
 
 Dumont, 26 
 
 Dumoulin, 321 
 
 Dumouriez, 74, 75, 143, 150, 152, 
 155, 156, 160-163, 170, 172-177, 
 182-185, 187-189, 191-194, 199, 
 
 222, 224, 226, 234, 245, 256, 
 
 272, 292, 293 
 
 Duplay, 80, 290 
 
 Duport, 24, 25, 54, 95, 122, 127, 
 
 287 
 Durand, 318 
 
330 
 
 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 ELISABETH, Mme., 89 
 Esebeck, Baron d', 225 
 Estienne, 24 
 Etienne, St. , Rabaut de, 22, 205 
 
 FABRE D'EGLANTINE, 10, 79, 132, 
 141, 189, 190, 262, 263, 265, 
 266, 268, 271, 274, 281, 285, 
 287, 291-293, 296, 302 
 
 Fabricius, 246 
 
 Fauchet, 10, 121, 231 
 
 Fauvel, 318, 319 
 
 Fayau, 252-254, 257, 296, 322 
 
 Flahaut, Mme. de, 95 
 
 Fonfrede, 205 
 
 Fouquier-Tinville, 282, 290, 292, 
 294, 298-301 
 
 Fournier, 136, 177 
 
 Franklin, 123 
 
 Frederick William, 103 
 
 Fr&on, 21, 28, 32, 35, 55, 56, 88, 
 90, 91 
 
 GAMBETTA, 225 
 
 Garat, 150, 205, 208, 210, 211, 217, 
 
 218, 235, 240, 243, 272 
 Gamier, 91 
 Garran Coulin, 57 
 Ge"ly, Mile., 220, 287 
 Gensonne, 120, 167, 189, 191, 207, 
 
 240 
 
 Gillet, 138 
 Girey-Dupre, 180 
 Gorsas, 108 
 Gossuin, 164 
 Grandpre, 128 
 Gr^goire, 10 
 Grenville, 157 
 
 Guadet, 10, 191, 199, 203, 207, 293 
 Guiton-Morveaux, 320 
 
 HAMEL, 130 
 
 Hanriot, 210, 211, 218, 288, 295 
 Hauttoir, Demoiselle du, 315 
 Hebert, 12, 205, 208-210, 215, 
 
 245, 246, 258, 261-265, 2 70 
 
 271, 273, 277-279 
 Henry, 214 
 Herault de Sechelles, 76, in, 156, 
 
 209, 240, 278, 295, 303 
 
 Herman, 290, 294, 301, 302, 321 
 Heron, 281, 282 
 Hoche, 226 
 Huguenin, 92 
 
 ISNARD, 10, 79, 177, 197, 202, 
 
 204-209, 216 
 
 JEFFERSON, 35 
 
 Jourdan, 247 
 
 Julien, Jean, 106 
 
 Just, St., 218, 250, 260, 275-278, 
 
 281-283, 287, 294, 297-300, 319, 
 
 320, 322 
 
 KELLERMANN, 143, 226 
 Kersaint, 38, 39, 167 
 Kleber, 247 
 
 LACLOS, 25, 55, 56, 66 
 
 Lacoste, 273, 323 
 
 Lacretelle, 16 
 
 Lafayette, 10, II, 24, 25, 27, 30- 
 
 40, 43-46, 48, 50, 54, 56, 64-66, 
 
 73-76, 79, 93, 95, 102, 103, 121, 
 
 123, 126, 127, 156, 172, 228, 
 
 279, 287, 293, 316, 317 
 Laflotte, 300 
 Laloi, 266, 267 
 Lamarck, 316, 317 
 Lamartine, 121, 135, 137, 170 
 Lamballe, Princesse de, 10, 95, 98 
 Lameth, 24, 25, 32, 42, 54, 139, 
 
 287, 317 
 
 Lanjuinais, 176, 177 
 Lanthenas, 169 
 Laponneraye, 56 
 Laporte, II 
 Lariviere, 257 
 Larochefoucauld, 39, 40 
 Lasource, 127, 145, 188-192, 194, 
 
 195, 200, 214 
 Lauzun, Due de, 96 
 Lebas, 321 
 Lebrun, 149, 152, 154-156, 210, 
 
 218, 224, 292, 320 
 Lebrun, Topino-, 84, 85, 292, 293, 
 
 301 
 
INDEX 
 
 331 
 
 Legendre, 79, 2o8 > 2 7<>. 2 73 2 78, 
 
 282, 295-298, 321, 322 
 Lenox, 2 
 Leopold, 69 
 Lepelletier, 168 
 
 Levasseur, 48, 195, 260, 320-322 
 Lewes, 13 
 L'Homond, 122 
 Lindet, 221, 286, 288 
 Linguet, 6 
 Locke, 123 
 Louis XIV., 1 8 
 Louis XV., 17 
 Louis XVI., 1 8, 37-48, 50, 71, 75, 
 
 78, 79, 81, 82, 86, 94-99, 104, 
 
 105, 123, 139, 166-168, 171, 
 
 198, 273, 323 
 Louvet, 25, 100, 150 
 Luckner, 75 
 Lullier, 295 
 
 MABLY, 123 
 
 Magerie, 122 
 
 Maguire, Rev. P., I 
 
 Maillard, 121 
 
 Maistre, J. de, 70 
 
 Mallet du Pan, 70, 71, 79, 159 
 
 Mandar, 130, 131 
 
 Mandat, 77, 81-84, 9O-94, "3 
 
 Manuel, 77, 90, 94, 121, 144, 152 
 
 Marat, 10, 21-25, 33, 54, 67, 69, 
 
 IO2, IO6, IO8-IIO, 114, 115, 121, 
 124, 126, 127, 133, 146-148, 150, 
 I58,l67,I73,I77,I78,l82,I92, 
 I98-2OO, 2O2, 203, 2O7, 2O8, 215, 
 217, 231, 232, 239, 254, 255, 
 305 
 
 Marten, Henry, 30, 31 
 
 Mathieu, 104 
 
 Maubourg, 95 
 
 Maugras, 96 
 
 Maure, 189 
 
 Maury, 31, 174 
 
 Mercier, 21, 22 
 
 Mercy, 70 
 
 Mergez, 157 
 
 Merlin of Douai, 164 
 
 Merlin of Thionville, 10, 257, 259 
 
 Michelet, 14, 28, 98, 114, 117, 121, 
 
 133, 136, 290, 318 
 Mirabeau, 10, 11, 14, 24-26, 33- 
 
 36, 40, 65, 243, 257, 284, 287, 
 
 2 93, 305, 306, 316-318 
 Miranda, 172, 176 
 Moisson, 91 
 Molleville, B. de, 10, 39, 41, 42, 
 
 48, 112, 121, 126, 317 
 Monge, 149, 155, 178 
 Montesquieu, 6, 123 
 Montesquiou, 245 
 Montmorin, Cte. de, 10, 11,41-48, 
 
 70, 95, 105, 1 10, 126, 127, 317 
 Montmorin, Marquis de, 127 
 Moore, Dr., 86, 88, 104, 105, 117, 
 
 133-135 
 Morillon, 222 
 
 Morris, Gouvernevtr, 95, 98 
 Mortimer-Ternaux, 84, 106, 114, 
 
 136, 140, 145, 146 
 
 NAPOLEON, 35, 99, 107, 175, 226 
 Nicolas, 262, 290 
 Noel, 157, 158, 293 
 
 ORANGE, Prince of, 233, 247 
 Orleans, 24, 25, 31, 54, 189, 192, 
 199, 200, 284, 287, 288 
 
 PACHE, 162, 163, 170, 192, 208, 
 
 210, 215, 218, 279 
 Paine, 157, 287 
 
 Panis, 81,82, 102, 114, 119,282,286 
 Papillion, Marie, I 
 Parnell, 219 
 Peltier, II, 134-137 
 Penieres, 187, 188 
 Petion, 10, 56, 75-77, 80-84, 87, 
 
 9 2 93, 99, "8, 126, 141, 167, 
 
 168, 198, 199, 217 
 Peyre, 56 
 Peyrilhe, 27 
 Peyssard, 96 
 Philippeaux, 145, 260, 262, 271, 
 
 274, 286, 295 
 Pichegru, 226 
 
 Pin, Marquis de la Tour du, 31 
 Pitt, 157, 234, 256, 264, 265, 273,298 
 Priest, Saint-, 31 
 Prudhomme, 119, 121, 130-134, 
 
 I3 6 , I37> 282 
 
332 
 
 LIFE OF DANTON 
 
 RABAUT DE ST. ETIENNE, 22, 205 
 
 Rabaut-Pommier, 204 
 
 Raffron, 270 
 
 Recordain, I, 5 
 
 Renaudin, 290 
 
 Riouffe, 306 
 
 Robert, 56, 66, 67, 90, 160, 284, 
 287 
 
 Robert, Mme., 88, 91 
 
 Robespierre, 4, 25, 50, 52, 54, 62, 
 65, 66, 69, 73, 74, 80, 86, 92, 
 102, 110-112, 133, 135, 145, 
 146, 150, 173, 174, 176, 178, 
 181, 182, 199, 206, 217, 223, 
 238-240, 244, 245, 249, 250, 
 256-258, 260, 263-267, 271, 272; 
 275, 277, 281-287, 290, 292, 
 294, 296, 297, 299, 301, 306, 
 310, 319, 320, 322 
 
 Robinet, i, 29, 38, 63, 66, 316, 
 
 323 
 
 Roederer, 81, 92, 99 
 
 Rohan, Cardinal de, 18 
 
 Roland, 72, 103, 107, 115, 118, 
 119, 121, 127-129, 135-137, 
 141, 143, 145, 148-151, 155, 
 169, 184, 185, 192, 210, 214, 
 306 
 
 Roland, Mme., 3, 8, 10, 118, 125, 
 126, 128-131, 134, 136, 143, 
 144, 148-150, 167, 180, 214, 
 
 315 
 Ronsin, 260, 262, 271, 273, 274, 
 
 277, 3*3 
 
 Rossignol, 245, 260, 262 
 Rothschild, Baron F. de, 17 
 Rotondo, 56 
 Rouarie, La, 222 
 Rousseau, 6, 14, 123, 263 
 Rousselin, 210 
 Royer-Collard, 92, 122 
 Royou, 147 
 Ruhl, 279, 280, 288, 313 
 
 SANSON, 289, 303 
 Santerre, 80, 91, 94 
 
 Sergent, 81, 82, 102, 114, 119, 177 
 
 Servan, 112, 129, 138, 155, 160 
 
 Sieyes, 39, 43, 44 
 
 Sombreuil, 132 
 
 Sorel, 154 
 
 Souberbielle, 301 
 
 Stengel, 176 
 
 Stephens, Morse, 34, 305 
 
 Sybel, Von, 139-141 
 
 TAINE, 19, 138, 139, 318 
 
 Talleyrand, 38, 39, 155-158 
 
 Tallien, 168, 298 
 
 Thenard, 135 
 
 Thiebault, 16-18, 95, 96, 98, 109 
 
 Thuriot, 76, ill, 115, 168, 198, 
 
 207, 208, 220, 240, 241 
 Tocqueville, 19 
 Tourzel, Mme. de, 30 
 Tray, 95 
 Treilhard, 164 
 Trudaine, 95 
 
 VACHART, 56 
 
 Vadier, 56, 266, 286, 301 
 
 Valaze, 207 
 
 Varlet, 177, 214 
 
 Vergniaud, 10, 74, 75, 78, 109, 
 146, 166, 176, 177, 179, 180, 
 201, 204, 211, 240, 245, 306 
 
 Vilate, 286, 290 
 
 Vincent, 262, 274, 277, 313 
 
 Vinot, 5 
 
 Voltaire, 6, 14, 55 
 
 Voulland, 274, 301 
 
 WESTERMANN, 81, 91, 100, 271, 
 
 273, 285, 291, 295, 298 
 Wille, 90 
 Wimpfen, 233, 284, 288 
 
 YORK, Duke of, 159 
 Young, Arthur, 16, 18 
 
 Siottiswoode & Co. Printers, New-street Square^ London 
 
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